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Extract

With her trademark visual wit, our buddy Mophead unravels the knots that keep us up at night.

‘What do you do if nothing is right – not at home, at school, anywhere?’
‘What if people don’t like me?’
‘What if your own ideas stink?’
‘How do I hug my dad?’ 

One morning, Selina wakes up with a twisting, tangling, knotty problem. It takes over everyone and everything – work, kids, life, the lot. How can she get out of a knot this tight?

Then she remembers: kids write to her all the time – they ask some of life’s toughest questions. Can she help them through their knots? And through helping them, can she find a way out of her own?

In this self-help give-it-a-go moppy-mayhem-filled workbook-that’s-all-about-play, join Selina as she scribbles and draws and writes her way out of the darkness – and invites you to take out a pen.

A book for readers from eight to eighty and for anyone in a dark place, no matter what knot you’ve got.

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Looking for more Mophead? 

Including the award-winning Mophead: How Your Difference Makes a Difference and the best-selling Mophead Tu: The Queen's Poem.

Click here! 

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Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, English and French descent. She was the first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PhD in English from the University of Auckland and is now a Professor of English specialising in Pasifika literature. Her first collection, the bestselling Fast Talking PI, won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry in 2010. Marsh represented Tuvalu at the London Olympics Poetry Parnassus event in 2012; her work has been translated into Ukrainian, French, and Spanish and has appeared in numerous forms live in schools, museums, parks, billboards, print and online literary journals. As Commonwealth Poet (2016), she composed and performed for the Queen at Westminster Abbey. She became New Zealand’s Poet Laureate in 2017. Her debut children’s book and memoir, Mophead: How Your Difference Makes a Difference, was awarded the Margaret Mahy Book of the Year at the 2020 New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults and was followed by the bestselling Mophead Tu: The Queen’s Poem.

Awards and Nominations

Finalist – 2024 Elsie Locke Award for Non-fiction – New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults

Praise for the multi-award-winning Mophead: How Your Difference Makes a Difference and Mophead Tu: The Queen’s Poem

‘This magic book reaches past our brains and squeezes life into our hearts and imaginations . . . Mophead is clever and joyful and inspiring, with not a smidgen of pretension or condescension. It is – dare it be said – perfect.’ — New Zealand Book Awards for Children and Young Adults

‘Visually rampant, typographically insane, wildly funny and brutally honest, Mophead turns a story about a kid being bullied into an entertaining, visually engaging, hugely enjoyable and inspiring book . . . What a sensation! A book for readers from 1 to 100!’ — PANZ Book Design Awards

‘Mophead is quirky and full of surprises. The story is very funny and, like all good funny stories, has a sting in the tail. Mophead has much to say about finding that inner strength that allows you to be true to yourself.’ — Gavin Bishop, ONZM

‘The book is about learning to embrace your difference, and using that difference to make a change in the world. This book is funny and empowering with magnificent illustrations.’ — Hera Lindsay Bird

‘Selina Tusitala Marsh’s spectacular sequel, Mophead Tu, does not disappoint. Much like the first Mophead, the story told is bold, challenging, and hilarious. . . . Marsh breaks down big concepts for a young audience and threads through Pasifika mythology and knowledge from our academics in fun and imaginative ways. . . . A hardback book full of life, this is the perfect addition to every library, especially if you already have the first Mophead. And if you don’t, this is even more reason to acquire both!’ — Rhegan Tu‘akoi, The Sapling

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