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