Bob Docherty wins Betty Gilderdale Award (2025)

 

Bob Docherty wins Betty Gilderdale Award (2025)

By Trevor Agnew, QSM

 “Reading delays aging.” – Bob Docherty

An acre of wildflowers blooms outside Christchurch's Aranui Library, while tiny football players scamper across Wainoni Park in the mid-spring sunshine. Inside Aranui Library, the scene is no less delightful. Kate De Goldi is praising Bob Docherty before presenting him with the 2025 Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award. Bob is relaxed modestly in the front row, flanked by his family and surrounded by the cream of New Zealand’s creators and curators of books for young people. Rachael King, Gavin Bishop, Desna Wallace and Bill Nagelkerke are among the applauding audience as Bob – now officially retired -  gets up to speak about – well, books – of course.

“A child who doesn’t read is no better off than a child who can’t read,” is Bob’s text for the day. After a lifetime of encouraging kids to read, he tells us there are three key factors to getting young people to read: parents, teachers and librarians. 

Scots-born and growing up in Lyttelton, Bob read widely as a boy, encouraged by his parents. As he recites the titles which entranced him at home and school, his audience sighs in shared recognition and remembrance. Chicken Licken, Winnie the Pooh, The Hobbit, Narnia, The Famous Five and Biggles all parade by. Bob honours his high school English teacher, Gordon Ogilvie, who introduced him to Animal Farm. More authors’ names flood out: Alistair MacLean, Charles Dickens, Jane Austen and Graham Greene. It says everything you need to know about Bob’s enthusiasm for books that he read Doctor Zhivago while travelling down the Amazon in 35 degrees heat.

Bob’s first role in the National Library was technical as Film Librarian but he was soon a Reference Librarian specialising in young people’s books. “I read like a madman,” he recalls. More names fly past as he names his favourites: Jack Lasenby, William Taylor, Margaret Mahy, David Hill, Tessa Duder and Joy Cowley. From making booklists, he went on to visiting schools, as well as talking at library conferences and teachers’ workshops, always with the message of “how to get kids enthused about books.”

From his popular visits to schools, Bob found that most boys wanted their books to be a ‘quick fix’, short and full of action. “They enjoy ‘getting-away-with-it stories!”  (He calculated that he visited every boys’ school in the South Island.) Girls had different tastes, often preferring longer stories about friendship and relationships. Bob feels that girls have now moved to having some attitudes similar to those of boys and are happily reading about vampires and zombies. “They are all interested in fairness and justice.”

Bob also developed his signature professional technique of giving his audiences a potted summary of a story, capturing their enthusiasm, and then refusing to tell how it ends.  Familiar names appear again: Paul Jennings, Anne Cassidy, John Marsden, Harry Potter, and Twilight. Who is the best role model? Hermione, it seems. 

[On a personal note, Ben Brown, Bob Docherty and I once formed an “expert” panel advising a Christchurch audience on how to get boys to read. Bob wove magic, re-telling stories and leaving the cliff-hanger endings dangling. By the end of the evening Bob had not only the boys but also their parents seeking out the stories.]

Undaunted by being made redundant from the National Library in 2009, Bob continued visiting schools, providing workshops and enthusing readers and teachers alike. He was a judge for the Children’s Book Awards. Best of all, he also created the wonderful website, Bob’s Books. It offers bright, well-informed reviews of books for young people.  

[On a personal note, the NZ Book Council once contracted me to locate some sources of good website reviews of New Zealand books for young adults. Bob’s reviews were the best. They always proved fresh, perceptive, positive and – important, this – they didn’t copy the publishers’ blurbs. Bob’s work was always original. He had read the book!]

Bob operated his website for a dozen years and over 2,300 books. Then he decided that “old age is a fulltime job,” and called a halt to school visits in 2021. In his retirement he wrote a memoir, Boomer, available on Amazon. In a typically Bob gesture, he also promised, “I will still work on my blog and add a few adult books that are suitable at lower levels and I will still read the odd children’s book.”

Bob continued this until his second retirement in April 2025. The Betty Gilderdale Award, presented by his fellow workers in the literary vineyard, is thus perfectly timed. It is also thoroughly deserved. By the end of his lively and enthusiastic speech – full text on the Storylines website –  Bob still found time to call out a few favourite stories, such as Mandy Hager’s Singing Home the Whale and A. N. Dixon’s The Edge of Light trilogy.

Yes, Bob has spent the afternoon making his audience want to read more books.

 Trevor Agnew, QSM,   November 2025

 

Fact Box: Winners of Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award Eve Sutton (1990) Dorothy Butler (1991) Elsie Locke (1992) Jo Noble (1993) Ron Bacon (1994) Graham Beattie (1996) Diane & Gary Hebley (1997) Phyllis Johnston (1998) Betty Gilderdale (1999) Veda Pickles (2001) Barbara Murison (2002) Jean Bennett (2003) Ray Richards (2004) John McKenzie (2005) Frances Plumpton (2006) Katerina Te Heikōkō Mataira (2007) Lois Rout (2008) Glyn Strange (2010) Ruth and John McIntyre (2011) Gerri Judkins (2012) Trevor Agnew (2013) Robyn Southam (2014) Trish Brooking (2015) Rosemary Tisdall (2016) Maureen Crisp (2017) Jeannie Skinner (2018) Crissi Blair (2019) Lorraine Orman (2020) Sarah Forster (2021) Libby Limbrick (2022) Joy Sellen (2024) Bob Docherty (2025)

 

Fact Box: The Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award “The Storylines Betty Gilderdale Award honours the late Betty Gilderdale, a lifelong advocate and supporter of children’s literature through her academic research, work as a reviewer and 30 years' committee service to Auckland’s Children’s Literature Association. Prior to 2000, the award was known as the Children’s Literature Association’s Award for Services to Children’s Literature. The award is given annually for outstanding service to children’s literature and literacy and carries a monetary prize of $2000. The recipient delivers a 40-minute address, known as the Storylines Spring Lecture, as part of the award presentation, usually in November. Nominations can be for distinguished service either at a regional or national level. Nominations are sought from the public and selection from those nominated is made by a panel selected by Storylines.”