The School Journal was 100 years old in May 2007. A Nest of Singing Birds: One Hundred Years of the New Zealand School Journal - a full-colour, lavishly illustrated book by award-winning writer Gregory O'Brien - celebrates, in words and images, the publication that over the last hundred years has shaped the country we live in. "A nest of singing birds" is how the School Journal office was once described to poet and Journal editor Alistair Campbell.
Over the course of its history, the School Journal has attracted work from some of New Zealand's greatest writers and artists, among them Margaret Mahy, James K. Baxter, Janet Frame, Rita Angus, Russell Clark, and Dick Frizzell. Poet, painter, essayist, editor, curator, and art writer Gregory O'Brien has a prolific literary output.