After that came two books by Ulf Stark of Sweden; My friend Percy's Magical Gym Shoes and Can you whistle Johanna?

“He is one of my all-time favourite writers, and has been published in 20 languages – and Gecko Press was the first publisher in the world to publish him in English,” says Marshall.

“Another book, by Sven Nordkvist, called The Fox Hunt, has been published in 40 countries and sold four million copies. It has almost cult status in Europe.”

“These books are all chosen because they are great stories. Our aim is simply to find curiously good books.”

3 % of books in UK are translated

In Sweden, it is normal to read books in translation – as it is in all the European countries, where some 40 percent of books published originate in another language. Compare that to the United Kingdom, where 3 percent of books published each year - up from one percent two years earlier - are from outside the country.

In 2001, Marshall went to the Frankfurt Book Fair for the first time, “just to look,” and then to Bologna, the International Children’s Book Fair, to learn – and as it turned out, to make valuable contacts. She goes back each year.

“The more publishers I talked to, the more it became clear that publishers in countries like Germany, the Netherlands, Belgium, Austria and Sweden were selling rights for their best writers and illustrators – the likes of Margaret Mahy and Joy Cowley and Lynley Dodd – in every language but English.”

Marshall says when she told Dag Hernried, the Swedish publisher of Margaret Mahy, what she was doing, he said publishing European books in English could mean one of two things. “Either I was an idiot, or it was a brilliant niche.”

Marshall believes it is a niche. Not only that, but because international publishers are starting to show interest in foreign books, she believes she is in a growing market. The recent success of authors like Cornelia Funke, writing in German, the Madeleine books (French), and Geronimo Stilton of Italy are making translated children’s books easier to sell.

The time is right

New Zealand children’s book author and reviewer Kate De Goldi says that in the sixties there were far more books translated than there are today – back then Babar, Pippi Longstocking, Heidi, Emil the Detective and Mrs Pepperpot were staples of the English-reading child’s literary diet, in New Zealand and overseas.

Joanne Owen, children’s book buyer for Borders UK, also believes the time is right for UK publishers to publish more children’s books from abroad. In The Children’s Bookseller magazine, she cites barriers which include the cost of translation; that English publishers do not often understand other languages; and some resistance in the marketplace to authors whose books are perceived to be foreign and therefore ‘difficult’, but she concludes that “clearly there is a place for translated children’s books on the shelves of UK bookshops.”

“If there is a place in the UK, then why not in New Zealand? And why wait for it to come from the UK – why not start here?” asks Marshall.

“I think the great thing about these books,” says Marshall, “is that you know they are good. They have readers in lots of different countries. They have stood the test of time. They have won awards. They are great stories – and great books.”