The Lost Island of Tamarind by Nadia Aguiar

Three children adrift on the ocean, land on a tropical island and begin searching for their parents who were washed overboard during a fierce storm. So begins the ambitious adventure The Lost island of Tamarind by Nadia Aguiar. The main characters Maya and Simon have to care for their infant sister as they trek through the treacherous terrain. On their journey they encounter carnivorous vegetation, blood-thirsty pirates, and an evil child-stealing woman who rides a jaguar. All this would be action enough but the island of Tamarind is in chaos as unscrupulous soldiers fight a bitter civil war.

The Lost Island of Tamarind
(Puffin, 2008)

   Aguiar writes lengthy passages of description which plunge the reader into a tropical zone, but tend to slow the pace in places. Her imagination is vivid. She tells of giants, mermaids, glowing mineral wealth and a village that lives in the tree-tops. I love the way she describes life on the Pamela Jane, the small boat the children call home. Also the wildlife she writes about sound wondrous: butterflies and monkeys, parrots and turtles.
   Although written for Young Adults I would recommend this book to anyone who loves fantasy. It is a large tome though, so be prepared for a long read.

Maraea and the Albatrosses by Patricia Grace

Maraea and the Albatrosses (Puffin, 2008)

Maraea grew up in a Maori village on a clifftop overlooking the sea. Each year her family welcomed the nesting albatrosses and cared for the chicks when the parent birds were out gathering food. Year after year the village grew smaller as the older people died and the younger ones left to live elsewhere. Soon only  Maraea remained to welcome the albatrosses.
   This children's picture book shows how a local community can bond with an ecological phenomenon and make it central to their lives. The sadder theme though, deals with the notion of the seduction of the big cities and how rural communities can wither and die, along with their specialised local knowledge.
   The drawings appear to be done in water-colour and pastel, but I'm no expert in artistic technique. The birds are depicted accurately and the artist Brian Gunson captures the melancholy of the story.
   A beautiful picture story book pitched at young readers, but one that all ages can admire.

Micronesian canoes

A model of a Nauruan canoe.
Source: B. Montgomery

I recently travelled to Canberra and while there I was privileged to tour the Menzies library at the Australian National University. On the first floor were two exhibits from their Asia Pacific collection: a model of a Nauruan canoe and an actual outrigger canoe from Kiribati. Lovely examples of island craftsmanship.

An outrigger canoe from Kiribati. Source: B. Montgomery

Where We Once Belonged by Sia Figiel

Where We Once Belonged
(Pasifika Press, 1997)

This book is challenging in that there is an awful lot of Samoan language peppered throughout and if you don't understand Samoan then you feel as if you're missing out on chunks of the story. The other thing which confronts readers is its unconventional structure. It doesn't follow a conventional linear narrative. Instead the reader gets the feeling that they are thrown in among a group of reminiscing or indeed gossiping teenage girls that they've never met and who continually lapse into their mother tongue or change the subject. The effect is actually engaging. You see how life in a Samoan village revolves around family and how this can be both a blessing and a burden. The central character Alofa struggles to assert herself and draw away from family expectations. Her friends are colourful and controversial and their stories are all fascinating.
   The book contains a sprinkling of mythology and shows how this ties the people to their land. People are depicted in a blunt way and Figiel's imagery is evocative. There are even a few poems in the text which also work well.
   I can't say I understood everything in this novel, but it was an eye-opening journey into adolescent life in Samoa in the 1970s. It also won the Commonwealth Writer's prize for the Asia Pacific region in 1997.

The Last Men by Iago Corazza

The Last Men by Iago Corazza. (2008,White Star Publishers)

This book is breath-taking! I am known to take pretty average photographs so when I come across a coffee-table book of such exquisite photographic portraiture I am in awe. Corazza and his colleagues travelled to Papua New Guinea and Irian Jaya and attended sing-sings in the highlands. There they took hundreds of photographs of the myriad of costumes and finery on display. Costumes displayed everything from moss and shells to cassowary beaks, boar tusks, bird-of-paradise feathers, leaves, bilums and penis gourds.
   The detail in the pictures is so fine that you can imagine these proud and scary warriors right before you, complete with sweat and face paints.
   The book's full title is The last Men: Journey Among the Tribes of New Guinea but it seems to also be published as Farewell to the Last Man: Irian Jaya and Papua New Guinea. No matter what the title, it is just magnificent!
   Please note that the link above takes you to Corazza's website which is written in Italian but there are some super photographs at the introduction which give you a taste of his amazing work.

Throwim Way Leg by Tim Flannery

Throwim Way Leg
(Text, 1998)

If you are fascinated by the amazing wild life of New Guinea then this book is a real treasure. Scientist Tim Flannery spent many years travelling to New Guinea to undertake field research into the mammals there and has cobbled together a fascinating collection of anecdotes and accounts of his travels and work in the beautiful and often treacherous mountains of this large tropical island.

The Dingiso, a ground-living tree
 kangaroo discovered by  Flannery in
1994. Source: T. Flannery

   Flannery's descriptions of the landscape are evocative. It was easy to imagine the colourful frogs in the moss, the misty cold mountain tops and the fierce flooded waterways.
   A set of colour plates in the centre of the book shows some of the people he worked with, the stunning terrain and a few of the creatures he encountered.
   I loved this book and I'd recommend it to anyone interested in ecology or travel writing. For those interested in traditional lifestyles Throwim Way Leg tells of many customs of the Mountain people, how their way of life is changing due to Western influence and how this in turn impacts upon wildlife conservation.

The Ghosts of Iron Bottom Sound by Sandy Nelson

The Ghosts of Iron
 Bottom Sound
(2010, Harper Collins)

I was really interested to read this thinking it would have scary ghosts haunting Honiara or Bonegi Beach but no, it's not so dark. They are actually quite benevolent ghosts that reside in a book that the protagonist Paddy repeatedly borrows from the library. They hound the boy to ask his grandfather about the battle for Savo Island and the sinking of HMAS Canberra during WW2. Paddy's grandfather was a crew member on the fated ship and was rescued but hundreds weren't so lucky. Unfortunately his grandfather doesn't like to talk about his war experiences but he lets Paddy read his journal which outlines the full horror of the sea battle.
   The story is pitched at younger readers and the journal account of life on board the warship is fascinating and well presented for 8 to 12 year olds. I get a feeling older readers wouldn't be as captivated by the plot however.
   Nelson has obviously done a lot of research and the photographs in the back are a great addition to the story.

Commonwealth Shorts

There is a great creative venture going on right now in the Pacific where a group of Islander film-makers,writers and directors are working on some short films along the theme of relationships. The scheme is called Commonwealth Shorts and it is a partnership between Commonwealth Writers, B3 Media and the Commonwealth Broadcasting Association/Worldview. The five short films, one documentary and four dramas, will be premiered in Auckland New Zealand on February the 26th.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals by J.Maarten Troost

Swampy land near the airport.
B. Montgomery, 1992

In 1992 I visited Kiribati for a week and stayed at the only decent hotel on Tarawa. I was amazed at how thin the atoll was. In some places it seemed only 50 metres from one side of the island, the lagoon, to the other side, the ocean. The whole place was awash with water and swampy areas made agriculture impossible. (I imagine with climate change things will only get worse.) The shops had even less variety than those in Nauru and there wasn't much to do except sit in the shade and try to cool down.

The Sex Lives of Cannibals
(Broadway Books, 2004)

   The Sex Lives Of Cannibals is a travel book which goes into far more detail of life on Tarawa. The author, J. Maarten Troost, spent two years in Kiribati and writes a refreshingly funny account of his experiences there. His frustrations with obtaining fresh water and something interesting to eat are familiar ones to expats in the central Pacific. Troost's quirky voice and sometimes contrary nature make some of his anecdotes hilarious. His way of solving the neighbourhood's noise pollution (ie: loud irritating music) is one that had me chuckling.
   There is a fair amount of swearing, so if you can't stomach profanities you may have to give it a miss. But I highly recommend this to expats throughout the Pacific and other island nations. So much of the content will make you nod and say 'That's right..., island time.'