Materials from Oceania
While gathered together for the Christmas holiday, a large New Zealand family and their various guests and hangers-on find their lives suddenly invaded by three fascinating but rather sinister brothers and by New Year nothing is the same again.
An autobiographical picture story book by an Aboriginal artist who recreates his experiences as a child growing up on the banks of the Murray River and surviving, with his family, through traditional skills.
On the 100th anniversary of the start of World War I, David Metzenthen asks, “What is the true meaning of remembering?” This is a powerful and moving picture book for older readers about the “one minute’s silence” observed in Australia on Remembrance Day, and what Gallipoli means to Australians in this context.
While Coco sleeps far away, the sun creeps over a hill and skids across the water, touching a fisherman’s cap. It heads out over frozen forests, making shadows in a child’s footprints, and balances on an airplane’s wing for a little boy to see. The sun crosses cities and countrysides, wakes furry creatures, makes a desert rainbow, and barges into Coco’s room to follow her through a day of play.
In rhyming text, Noni the pony and her friends, Dave Dog and Coco the cat, spend the day at the beach.
Meet Yak and Gnu. Two best friends who love to row and sing. But who will they meet on their journey down the river? This hilarious rhyming tale is full of adventurous animals and boats galore.
It is wartime. In the midst of the fighting and devastation, an unusual friendship is formed.
Nag Tai Korero means the currents of speech, a reference to the Maori tradition of oral storytelling. This book retells in simple form fourteen Maori stories and myths that have been passed down over centuries.
On the Hawaiian island of Molokai, life goes on for the three young Ogata children after the death of their mother and subsequent emotional withdrawal of their grief and guilt-stricken “Poppy.” The eldest at 13, Ivah is now responsible for the safety and well-being of tiny Maisie, vulnerable and mute since their mother’s passing; and for Blu, her uncontainable brother whose desperate need for love has made him vulnerable to the most insidious of relationships.
Set in a future New Zealand where only the Citizen who asks no questions can achieve happiness, a renegade hero seeks to rescue his family in the State-sponsored Game of Life.