Tama and the Taniwha    
Melanie Koster  Monica Koster

                                                                      

                                                           

Tama and the Taniwha   
Melanie Koster 
Ill. Monica Koster
Scholastic (2023)
Picture Book, 32 pages
Paperback
ISBN 978 1 77543 793 2

 

‘Don’t put your waewae in the water … or the taniwha might get you.’

This picture book for young readers takes a wryly humorous look at a young boy, Tama, being teased by his three older sisters. Bobbing about in the lake, they tease him about the possibility of a taniwha. ‘Tasty toes!’ taunts Hinewai.

Nervous, Tama checks with Grandad who has never seen a taniwha there. Grandma, swimming backstroke in the lake, is more encouraging, ‘You should join me! The water is beautiful!’

Tama master his fear, despite his sisters’ jokes, and starts swimming.  Suddenly each of the sisters feels something touching their feet. Hinewai, Tui and Maia scramble out of the water to Grandad. Tama, however, carries on swimming and meets the taniwha.

The illustrator Monica Koster (who is Melanie Koster’s artist daughter) has created colourful images of Tama’s experiences at the lake. Her illustrations are a fine match for the vivid word-pictures in the text, such as Grandma’s swimming costume which ‘gleamed like a polished pāua shell.’ She has created an attractive family as well as some beautiful underwater scenes. The taniwha – both in its imaginary and real form – is portrayed with flair and humour.

Young readers will find that this is a story where they can find pleasure in unravelling the plot and interpreting the illustrations. As a bonus, they learn the Māori words for body parts from waewae [toes] to māhunga [head].

 

Note: Teaching notes for Tama and the Taniwha are on the Scholastic website at: tama-and-the-taniwha_tn_final.pdf

A Māori language edition, Ko Tama me le Taniwha, is also available.

Trevor Agnew, 23 August 2023

[Review 3587]

 

 

Niue: People, Culture and Identity

                                                                             

Niue: People, Culture and Identity
Mele Nemaia (2025)   
Oratia Books
Moana Oceania series 
Non-fiction, 48 pages
Paperback
978-1-99-004271-3 $29.99 Pb

 

We all need to know more about Niue. I was genuinely surprised when I read Lynda Finn’s Trevor the Daring Duck (2023) and discovered that Niue has no streams. When a duck arrived from New Zealand, the kindly Niueans made him a pond!

 

Niue: People, Culture and Identity, the latest in the Moana Oceania series, introduces this charming island and its people with sympathetic text, fact boxes and colour photographs of daily life.

 Two numbers show why this particular book is so important. Niue has just under 2,000 people, while some 35,000 Niueans live in New Zealand. Both groups will value Mele Nemaia’s overview of Niue and its people. Non-Niueans will also find much to interest them in its colourful pages.

 Oratia’s Moana Oceania series of books (about the life and culture of such Pacific communities as Fiji, Sāmoa and the Cook Islands) are primarily written for people from those communities who want to know more about their heritage and identity.  They are also written for New Zealanders who want to find out more about the people of the Pacific, since New Zealand’s histories are inextricably intertwined with those of the Pacific. Niue was annexed by New Zealand in 1901 and 150 Niueans volunteered for the Great War. While Niue became self-governing in 1974, all Niueans are also New Zealand citizens.

 The author Mele Nemaia, MNZM, was born in Niue and has worked as a teacher and author in New Zealand. Thus, she is able to see this tiny community both from inside and outside and describe it with affection. I loved the way her first section, dealing with Niuean identity and Niuean Values, begins with family. Of course, this book is bilingual with facing pages in English and Niuean. So ‘Niue Values’ translates as ‘Tau aga moe e tau Mahani Mahuiga a Niue.’

Family connections are key elements in Niue’s fourteen villages and the plantations which supply the people with food. The various crops and the changing methods of cultivation are well described. Because food is important, there are several pages on how meals are prepared and cooked, with ingredients ranging from tuna to uga (coconut crab).

 Niue is the world’s largest raised coral atoll, with a circumference of 65 kilometres. The island’s fringing reefs and steep cliffs make it easy to see why Mele Nemaia says, ‘Niue has a beautiful but harsh environment.’ It also has a lively culture, shown here in the churches and schools, along with music, dancing, sports and weaving.

 Young readers will enjoy the account of the Takai New Year festival where villages try to outdo each other with a procession of decorated vehicles: ‘who has the most beautiful decorations, who the oldest and scrappiest vehicle, and who has the loudest boom box? … The lolly scramble is an important part of the takai.’

 The reading level for Niue is aimed at 8+, so it is also an ideal resource for schools and libraries. There is no index but the contents page is a good guide to the well-organised sections.

 Trevor Agnew 14 April 2026 [Review 3828]

Note: This review originally appeared in the May 2026 issue of Magpies magazine.

Trevor the Daring Duck: A True Tale from Niue

 

Trevor the Daring Duck  
Lynda Finn  (2023)
Nikki Slade Robinson

                                                                                     

Trevor the Daring Duck:
A True Tale from Niue
Lynda Finn
Ill. Nikki Slade Robinson
Scholastic (2023)
Picture book
32 pages Paperback
ISBN 978 1 77543 807 6 

 

‘Quack! What’s under this leaf? Quack! What’s around this corner?’

This picture book for young readers is the story of a duck who achieved fame by making an extraordinary journey.

‘Trevor … was a mallard duck and he was very curious.’

One day a huge storm washes Trevor off the rocks into the sea.

‘Yipee! I’m going on an adventure.’

Sometimes floating on the sea and sometimes flying, Trevor travels a long way across the Pacific Ocean. Finally he comes to an island, where he meets another bird.

‘Fakaalofa atu,’ says the bird.

‘Kia ora,’ Trevor replies

Trevor finds he has arrived at Niue and that a veka (woodhen) is welcoming him.

‘Where are all the ducks?’ asks Trevor.

‘What is a duck? asks Veka.

The rest of Lynda Finn’s charming story tells of Trevor’s life on Niue.

‘Because there are no streams or ponds on Niue, kind people made a special puddle for Trevor the duck.’ He was friends with Veka and some local hens. Newspapers wrote about him as ‘Duck Stuck in Niue: Trevor the Lonely Duck.’ Soon he was world famous. People brought him corn and oats and he shared it with his bird friends. Trevor loved his new home on Niue.

‘So Trevor, the curious duck, stayed on Niue for the rest of his life.’ 

Nikki Slade Robinson’s colour illustrations for this story are charming. As well as creating a very appealing cast of birds, she has used shapes and textures to create dramatic landscapes and seascapes for them. The result is an attractive introduction to Niue, its people and its language. And its duck.

 Trevor Agnew,  25 October 2023 [Review 3600]

 

The Only Branch on the Family Tree
 Sherryl Clark                      

 The Only Branch on the Family Tree
Sherryl Clark (2025)
Ill. Astred Hicks
University of Queensland Press
Verse Novel, 112 pages, Paperback
ISBN 9780702268915           

 ‘Today is the day 
my face flames red and
my eyes sting.’

This immensely readable verse novel begins as young Gemma surprises her teacher by erupting emotionally over a late assignment.

Fortunately, Gemma’s teacher, Mrs Wellcome, is aware that an Exploring Family project can cause personal stress. Then, Gemma tells how her project began. Her best friend, Marley, has a large family, so she was planning to create a big family tree. Gemma, by contrast, has only her mother.

Gemma sees herself and her mother as a team and ‘best friends.’ (Gemma is aware that her Mum’s parents are dead and that her own father is ‘on the other side of the world,’ where her mother left him.) In Sherryl Clark’s carefully crafted verses, the reader learns that Gemma had a sudden inspiration on how to deal with her assignment:

‘My project was going to be a collage…
… just lots of great photos
of Mum
and me.’

Sorting through old photos to make her collage, Gemma makes a shattering discovery. Her Nan is still alive.

‘Why would Mum lie to me?’

Gemma tells the reader what then happens in a series of short vivid poems.  She and Marley use the computer to find the address and phone number of her grandmother. Gemma feels she can’t question her mother.

What if this becomes another ‘closed subject’?

Realising Nan’s birthday is near, Gemma buys a card and a present. She calculates that she and Nan have both missed sharing eleven birthdays, so Gemma takes a bus to Nan’s suburb and rings the doorbell.

Avoiding spoiling the surprises that are in store, Gemma hears her Nan’s account of why her only relatives aren’t speaking to each other. Then Gemma realises she has to tell her mother what has happened. This conversation is a difficult one, especially when Gemma points out that her mother has lied to her about Nan being dead. Reconciliation takes time but with the helpful support of her friends and some sound advice from Mrs Wellcome, Gemma is able to make a breakthrough with her mother.

‘Alright, I’ll try, but if it goes wrong again …’

The meeting takes place and it seems to Gemma that she has failed. Her mother and grandmother seem as far apart as ever.  Then Mum returns home and provides the perfect finishing touch to Gemma’s family project.

The conclusion is believable and enjoyable.

 A ‘novel in verse’ might sound off-putting to young readers, so it must be stressed that The Only Branch on the Family Tree is immensely readable. Each poem is like a snapshot of an important moment or a special realisation. When Gemma tries a computer search for her grandmother, she finds the death date of her grandfather.

‘I’m fine,’ I say,
feeling silly about crying
for a grandpa
I never knew.

Powerful moments like these, conveyed in just a few carefully chosen words, are one of the reasons that poetry speaks across the ages.

Sherryl Clark has created a moving story which will resonate strongly with every reader. 

 

Before writing The Only Branch on the Family Tree, Sherryl Clark carried out research which included conversations with several families who had experienced estrangement. She found that ‘what is common to all is the pain, which is also often grief.’ At the end of the book, she has a list of helplines suitable for young people in Australia and New Zealand.

 

Trevor Agnew 29 April 2025 [Review 3767]

 

 

Dawn Raid: The Apology

 

Dawn Raid: The Apology                            

Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith
with Brooklyn Taylor
Ill. Minky Stapleton
My New Zealand Story series
Scholastic (2026)
Novel, 168 pages
Paperback
ISBN 978 1 77543 981 3

  

“I thought diary writing was going to be boring but so far it’s been okay.’ 

Jeremy McRae starts writing his diary in Invercargill in March 2020 as a school exercise but he quickly finds it a pleasure. ‘My grandmother Sofia (a.k.a. Granfia) always talks about the importance of keeping a record of our experience.’ Jeremy finds plenty to record because the Covid-19 epidemic has just reached New Zealand. Dawn Raid: the Apology, the latest addition to the My New Zealand Story series, thus records not one but two key events in our recent history.

 Covid becomes personal for Jeremy when Southland cases are reported and one of the infected men has children at Jeremy’s school. The next few pages give a vivid account of how the Covid lockdown changed people’s lives, especially when Mum has to have a test. Jeremy gives each day’s entry its own heading and two of them really hit home: PANIC! and LOCKDOWN!. Jeremy’s parents decide they will all move in with Granfia and Grandpa in their ten-acre block, just out of Invercargill, forming a larger family ‘bubble’ for the next four weeks.

 It is against the background of the lockdown that the diary now takes a fascinating turn. Jeremy helps Granfia to bring some stored boxes down from the loft, for sorting in the garage. ‘Old people collect A LOT of stuff,’ Jeremy writes, promising himself that he’ll never ask his grandkids to eat so much dust. ‘We got sidetracked with boxes of photos.’ Mullet hairdos, crocheted tank tops, Chrysler Valiants, go-go boots and other artefacts of the 1970s appear in the photos, along with a picture of people protesting.

 ‘Granfia pointed to a young girl and very casually said, “That’s me.” Wow. She was famous.’

 As Jeremy brings down more boxes, he finds that ‘Granfia really does get more interesting each day.’ He gets a crash course from Sofia in protest movements, including Bastion Point, the Springbok Tour and the Dawn Raids. The kids have heard about the Dawn Raids at school but Sofia surprises them all by reading aloud, from her 1976 diary, the account of her father and uncles being arrested. This is a jaw-dropping moment for readers who suddenly work out that Granfia is short for Grandma Sofia, who was Sofia Savea, the 13-year-old protestor hero of Dawn Raid (2018).

  Just as she did in the original novel, Dawn Raid, author Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith, creates a lively family atmosphere, even in the claustrophobic days of the Covid lockdown. Every page of Jeremy’s diary is fascinating. His teacher notes, when she assesses his efforts, that each entry records, ‘vivid details that create clear images in the mind of the reader.’

 Communication was important during the lockdown and so Jeremy’s friends text him, Granfia learns to use Snapchat and Auckland Aunts Nina and Alice use Face Time to help judge the family’s cooking competition. The most interesting link-up is when Granfia talks to the early members of the Polynesian Panthers about their plans to mark the fiftieth anniversary of their movement.  And Jeremy is allowed to sit in.  ‘I expected them all to be in their berets and leather jackets, but they were just in regular clothes like trackpants and sweatshirts.’

This culminates in the truly moving public ceremony, so aptly described in the title: The Apology.

 The striking cover portrait of Jeremy McRae, with its dramatic background using traditional Samoan designs, is by Minky Stapleton. It is also a neat companion to Minky Stapleton’s portrait of Jeremy’s grandmother, Sofia Savea, on the cover of Dawn Raid (2018).

As usual with the My New Zealand Story series, there is a lively and useful Historical Note at the end of the story, including contemporary photographs and a truculent letter from Robert Muldoon. More palatably, Granfia’s Famous Recipe for brandy snaps is also included.

 

Note: Co-author Brooklyn Taylor is Pauline Smith’s grandson. The publishers note that both ‘Pauline and Brooklyn found hanging out together to learn, research and create this book, side by side, a deeply enriching experience.’

Young readers and adult readers alike will find that entering this book is also a deeply enriching experience.

 

Trevor Agnew
10 June 2026  [Review 3844]

Dawn Raid 
Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith

Review by Trevor Agnew 
in Magpies magazine, May 2018

Dawn Raid (2018)
Pauline (Vaeluaga) Smith                            

Scholastic NZ
My NZ Story series
Paperback
ISBN 978 1 77543 475 7   

 

I find myself in the embarrassing position of reviewing a historical novel, which deals with a period that I remember. Those two words ‘dawn raid’ have a grim resonance for those of us who lived through the period of the overstayer controversy. The novel Dawn Raid is the latest in Scholastic’s My New Zealand Story series, so it has the familiar format of a diary kept by an observant teenager during interesting times.

 

The first thing to be said about Dawn Raid is that, despite its serious theme, it is an enjoyably amusing family story. Sofia Savea is a lively enthusiastic person, who writes with verve about her family, particularly her disaster-prone younger brothers, Ethan and Tavita. Her diary begins in June 1976 on her thirteenth birthday, when the big news is the opening of New Zealand’s first Macdonald’s in Porirua.

 

It was certainly a different age. Sofia’s milk delivery job means she can buy View-Master reels and go-go boots, and she pays little attention to the developing tension over unemployment rates and overstayers. Sofia looks up to her older brother Lenny (17) and is impressed by his school speech about the Hikoi and Maori land rights.  Interestingly it is Lenny’s friend Rawiri who first expresses concern about the rights of Pacific Islanders and dawn raids by police.  (“Me and Lily didn’t know what they were talking about,” writes Sofia, although she soon learns more.) The connection between Maori and Pacific Island communities’ response to these civil rights issues is well brought out.

 

Another strong feature is that the characters also learn from experience and develop in the course of the story. This includes Sofia’s hard-working Samoan-born father, Siaosi, who is rigidly authoritarian and has trouble accepting Lenny’s involvement with the Polynesian Panther movement. The cleverest change of attitude comes when Sofia encounters racial hostility from a classmate, Charlotte. Circumstances force the pair together, producing not only embarrassment and some fine comedy but also a mutual understanding.

 

While Sofia is ebullient in her diary, she finds making a speech at school is an ordeal but one of the pleasures of Dawn Raid is watching her rise to the challenge, so that her final speech becomes a rousing appeal for fair treatment of Islanders.

 

For the cover, Minky Stapleton has created an attractive and colourful portrait of a smiling Sofia, showing her surrounded by symbols – milk bottles, placards, white go-go boots – which make sense after you’ve read Sofia’s story. The cover style is very different from the others in the My New Zealand Story series and I hope it attracts readers.

 

Although only four contemporary photos are provided – surely there must be more images available - the author’s Historical Notes are well detailed, drawing connections to real people encountered in Sofia’s story. (Even Che Fu makes a guest appearance as a baby.)

 Some may be surprised by the attitudes shown by the police in the story but the situations depicted are based on real events. At the time Police Chief Superintendent Berriman declared, “Anyone who speaks with a non-New Zealand accent must arouse some query or suspicion.”

 Pauline Vaeluaga Smith has given a new generation an insight into a controversial and shameful period of our past – and she has done it with humour and compassion.

 

 This review first published in Magpies Magazine, May 2018

Trevor Agnew  Christchurch 

 

 

The Terrible Trio: The Mystery of the Lost Cape                                                                               

    
Swapna Haddow
Ill. Minky Stapleton
Scholastic (2026)
Graphic novel, 192 pages                                            

Paperback
ISBN 978 1 77543 901 1

 

We’re three volumes into The Terrible Trio series 
and I hadn’t noticed that the animal superheroes 
all wear capes when they come to the rescue. Yes, there they are: super-spoonbills saving overturned turtles, super-giraffes rescuing kittens from eagles, and super-pythons capturing bank-robbing capybaras. All those heroes wear capes at work.

Yet, our superheroes, Zeb the zebra, Barry the lemur and Margarine the penguin, are never seen wearing capes. Of course, they were right at the back of the queue when the superpowers were handed out. This means, rather disappointingly, that Zeb can camouflage himself on pedestrian crossings, Marge can make mac ‘n’ cheese, and Barry has nice handwriting. Perhaps they don’t need capes.

 

As Swapna Haddow’s latest chronicle of their adventures (and misadventures) begins, the trio are tidying- up at their mac ‘n’ cheese restaurant. The Lost Property Box poses a challenge; most of its contents seem to be Zeb’s rubber ducks. This results in the usual weird conversation which is a cheerful feature of The Terrible Trio:

Barry: ‘Your rubber duck is called Chick Chick?’

Zeb: ‘Yup.’

Barry: ‘You didn’t want to name your rubber duck DUCK DUCK?’

Zeb: ‘Nope. His name is Chick Chick. Marge helped me name him.

 

Barry finds a cape in the lost property and tries it on. He floats to the ceiling. He unties it and falls to the floor. A terrible temptation overcomes Barry. Soon reports are coming in of a masked crusader who has outwitted an entire wolf gang of bullion robbers.

Barry wears swimming goggles to keep the flies out of his eyes, so his friends don’t recognise him as he appears on the TV news using his super-skills to create life-saving notice-boards. Even as the Masked Crusader becomes a cult hero, Zeb is wondering about a very large emu who is offering a very large reward for a missing flying cape.

What follows is comic mayhem, especially when the emu is revealed to have a second super power, in her ability to kick bottoms.

 Swapna Haddow’s secret super-power is writing crazy conversations but she has the additional ability to construct running gags that recur throughout a story, ensuring a good time is had by all readers.

Minky Stapleton’s super-power is creating animal illustrations that show a flying lemur finding a way to rescue a sky-diving elephant who has become hooked on a steeple – and making us believe it could really happen.

 The Terrible Trio series is proof that humour is alive and well and living in New Zealand.

The series so far:

The Terrible Trio: the (not so) Superheroes (2025)
The Terrible Trio: the Day the Mac ‘n’ Cheese ran out (2025)
The Terrible Trio: the Mystery of the Lost Cape (2026)

Teaching Notes are at: the-terrible-trio_teacher-notes_final.pdf

Trevor Agnew

10 June 2026  [Review 3843]

 

Dreamslinger  Graci Kim

 

Dreamslinger  Graci Kim
Penguin Random House (2025)
Novel, 295 pages, Paperback
ISBN 978 1 776 95 343 1

 

New Zealand author Graci Kim follows her highly successful 

Gifted Clans trilogy with another lively and humorous fantasy series which also draws on Korean mythology.

Dreamslinger introduces Aria Loveridge (14), an ordinary girl with an extraordinary genetic mutation which makes her a dreamslinger.   Aria has a bright personality – her father, Professor Jack Loveridge, calls her ‘sparkler’ after the firework. Aria has accepted that being a dreamslinger makes her different in many ways. She feels her emotions more deeply than ordinary people and this has consequences.

Dreamslingers all have powerful dreams about the same mystical world, The Asleep. The emotions generated there can have fatal results. (Aria’s Korean-born mother died in a major dreamslinger Outburst, when Aria was only four.) Undaunted, Jack has campaigned for acceptance of the dreamslingers and his ‘restrain, contain, maintain’ programme is carried out in the Resthaven Home for Dreamslingers in Almiro, Texas.

 Aria is one of the young residents there whose dreams are researched. When they wake, the dreamslingers can safely unleash their Outbursts of pent-up emotions in chambers built to withstand the fires, hurricanes, ice storms and poisonous acids they generate. Understandably, there is public unease about the potential menace of dreamslingers. Worse follows when Jack’s Resthaven launch ceremony is hi-jacked by Tae, a Royal Slinger from the tiny hermit kingdom of Royal Hanguk (There, the Royal League trains teenagers to harness their outbursts and even bring dream beasts, such as Tae’s bloom dragon, Jaya, back from The Asleep).  Aria is blamed for the fiasco which results.

 With the future of her father’s work and the survival of Resthaven in jeopardy, Aria has to accept the challenge of King Lee Ogu and journey to Royal Hanguk, to compete in the Trials to be accepted as a Fellow. Her secret intention is to learn everything she can to help her father’s research, especially how dream beasts are controlled.

‘She was going to find the evidence she needed to prove that this reckless elite League was dangerous and plotting something sinister.’

 Hanguk turns out to be ‘nestled on an island inside Seoul’.  (Aria’s driver, Nam Changdo, compares it to Vatican City’s position within Rome.) Graci Kim has a powerful imagination so that her Hanguk is even more amazing than the Vatican. Menus there change according to the diner’s mood, while beds will adjust their comfort levels provided that they are instructed in rhyme.

 Aria passes a preliminary test of her powers, one of only a hundred trainees to do so. (Another successful candidate is Tui Walker, a New Zealander.) King Lee Ogu warns them that only twenty will become Fellows, so the competition will be fierce.

Aria and Tui are chosen to live in the Spring Palace of the bloom dragon during the Trials. The following two-thirds of the book follow Aria through the various challenges and her growing understanding of how the magical qualities of The Asleep can be used. Aria makes friends and some enemies. She also discovers that rather than being ordinary, she is truly exceptional.

 Dreamslinger is an exciting, sometimes alarming and often amusing adventure, with the bonus of a richly detailed dreamscape.

And dragons. There are lots of dragons.

 An unusual aspect of Dreamslinger is that the first edition (2025) 

used not one but two cover    

An Unusual aspect of Dreamslinger is that the first edition (2025) used not one but two cover illustrations, for different regions. Vivien To’s picture, used on the editions for the United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand, shows Aria in a hanbok (a traditional Korean dress, described on p.89) while a flying dragon circles her.  This illustration reflects Aria’s joint American and Korean heritage. The Disney Hyperion cover for the United States market, created by Jessica Fong, shows Aria riding on the back of a dragon; looking more like a young American superhero. The two covers may be seen to reflect different attitudes to DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion).

The book also provides maps (by Virginia Allan) of The Asleep and the Kingdom of Royal Hanguk, as well as Rachel Hamilton’s music for Aria’s lullaby.

The second volume in the series, about Aria’s novice training, is called Royalslinger.

Graci Kim’s website at www.gracikim.com includes Teacher Notes and printable resources.

 

Trevor Agnew 

18 May 2025  [Review 3768]

 The Caring Stars of Matariki: Pōhutukawa and Hiwa-i-te-Rangi
 

The Caring Stars of Matariki:                         
Pōhutukawa and Hiwa-i-te-Rangi
Miriama Kamo
Zak Waipara
Scholastic (2026)
Picture book, 32 pages
Paperback
ISBN 978 1 77543 971 4

 

‘Why did Pōua have to die?’ Sam asked.

Grandma kissed his head. ‘Because it was his time,’ she said. ‘Everything and everyone has its time.’

 Matariki is a time to remember the dead. Out on the wind-beaten shore of Te Mata Hāpuku (Birdlings Flat) Sam and Te Rerehua are being comforted by their Grandma, as they recall their late Pōua (Grandfather). They have memories of him catching and drying eels, hunting for agates and teaching them local traditions.

Sitting on a stony bank and looking up at the stars, they listen to Grandma telling them how precious this place is, with its marvellous waves and its view of the stars.

‘It’ll be Matariki soon,’ says Grandma and she tells them of the star Pōhutukawa who guides the dead on their journey to the stars.

They are interrupted by the patupaiarehe (trouble-making fairy folk of Māori tradition) who are hurling their raupō net into the sky. They are trying to capture Pōhutukawa. Why?

The patupaiarehe look defeated, and explain, ‘Because Grandma said that Pōua is with Pōhutukawa.’

Just like the humans, they are missing Pōua and want to bring him back. Grandma is firm with the patupaiarehe and reminds them that when the Matariki cluster of stars rises ‘all those people who have died in the last year will be released into the heavens. Pōhutukawa will guide them.’

‘What then?’

‘Then they will all become stars.’

Sam gets the abashed patupaiarehe to agree never to pull any more stars down.

When Pōhutukawa rises above the horizon a few days later, Grandma, Sam, Te Rerehua and all the patupaiarehe are waiting on the beach in the darkness. They all join in calling out, ‘Pōua! Pōua!’ as Grandma has taught them, ‘knowing that thousands of people everywhere were calling out the names of their loved ones too.’

The story ends with the mokopuna making their wishes for the year ahead on the star Hiwa-i-te-Rangi, just as the sun rises.

 Once again Miriama Kamo has succeeded in creating a story that conveys the essence of Matariki. She writes simple but powerful prose in the style of the traditional myths and legends. She has succeeded in the challenging feat of writing an appealing account for young readers of the importance of acknowledging the death of a loved one.

‘Memories. They’re just like the waves. Always there, washing up in our minds just when we need them.’

 

As always, Zak Waipara uses dramatic brush-strokes and strong lines to capture the wind-swept beauty of the great shingle spit of Te Mata Hāpuku. His pictures of the patupaiarehe are always a delight because he portrays them as truculent teenagers, always keen on mischief. Twinkling diamond symbols float around them as visual reminders of their supernatural powers. His symbolic pattern of the Matariki star cluster , which makes quiet appearances throughout the story, reflects traditional Māori weaving patterns. The pictures complement the story in simplicity and power.

 

With The Caring Stars of Matariki, this series of picture books has achieved its highest level, incorporating traditional beliefs and customs in a lively and interesting story that touches base with some very deep issues.

 

This is the fifth book in the Matariki series by Miriama Kamo and Zak Waipara:

 The Stolen Stars of Matariki (2018)

The Twin Stars of Matariki (2023)

The Kai Stars of Matariki (2024)

The Wild and Windy Stars of Matariki (2025

The Caring Stars of Matariki (2026)

 

Māori language versions of these books are also available:

Ngā Whetu Matariki Whānakotia (2018)

Ko Ngā Whetū Takirua Matariki (2023)

Ko Ngā Whetū Kai o Matariki (2024)

Ko Ngā Whetū Hauhau, Whetū Tarakaka o Matariki (2025

Ko Ngā Whetū Raupī o Matariki (2026)

 

Trevor Agnew  10 June 2026

Review 3842