How Many Times? Me Hia Rawa Ngā Wā? Tim Tipene
How Many Times? Me Hia Rawa Ngā Wā?
Tim Tipene, ill. Nicoletta Benella
Oratia Books (2025)
Picture book, Illustrated story
Paperback, 32 pages
ISBN 978 1 99 004281 2
‘Tēnā, āwhinatia mai?’tā Māmā inoi.
This bilingual story about helping has its English and
Māori versions on facing pages.
The first scene is a young girl’s bedroom, with Mum
telling her to get up. Tammy takes no notice. In an interesting visual
metaphor, Mum’s words fall onto the pillow. In the kitchen Mum asks young Luca
to help Grandad put away the dishes. Luca is busy with a computer and Mum’s
words fall to the floor.
As the story proceeds, all of Mum’s requests for help are
ignored because her children are watching television or playing games.
The illustrator, Nicoletta Benella, has created a clever
way of showing Mum’s problem in a visual form. The falling words, both English
and Māori, appear scrawled on a yellow cloud which grows larger with each
ignored request.
‘All members of a family should help out at home. I
can’t do it all.’
‘Me whakapau kaha te whānau katoa i te kāinga. Tē taea
e au ngā mahi katoa.’
Soon, the house is overwhelmed by yellow clumps of words
like ‘please/ koa’ and ‘now/ ināia tonu nei’. Before long Grandad
is trapped in his chair by yellow strands and Mum is buried under a cloud of
her unanswered requests for aid.
The children realise that everyone needs to help and they
vacuum up the clouds and sweep the words away. Then they tidy and clean the
house and do all the things they have been asked to.
Mum still has to remind them occasionally (by switching
off the TV) but they have learned their lesson about cooperation in the family.
The result is an imaginatively illustrated moral fable.
The translator for the Māori section is Kanapu
Rangitauira of Rotorua.
Trevor Agnew
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