Isle of Tears by Deborah Challinor

Isle of Tears (Harper Collins, 2009)

I must admit I'm not a fan of historical romances but I thought I'd give this one a go as it was set in New Zealand during the Maori/Pakeha wars in the late 1800s. Deborah Challinor has a talent for historical writing and wanted to write about this conflict but felt she didn't have the cultural clout to do so as she wasn't a Maori. What she did to resolve this was to write through the eyes of Isla, an orphaned Pakeha teenager who was taken in by local Maori.
   Isla grows to womanhood and marries a young Maori warrior. When tensions ignite between Maori and Pakeha in the Waikato region Isla accompanies her man to war. Battle weary, Isla leaves the conflict to search for her younger siblings and is captured by officers of the queen who take her back to Auckland. Isla is determined to escape and return to the Taranaki region to be with her Maori family.
   Challinor has gone into great detail explaining the gritty realities of trench warfare. The reader can feel the hunger, the fear and desperation that the Maori must have gone through in these pitched battles. From the perspective of someone who is not a Kiwi I found a lot of the historical references confusing and confess I skimmed over a lot of the war strategy discussions. However the way Challinor describes daily Maori life is fascinating.
   Much of the dialogue is written in a broad Scottish accent which is initially unsettling, but becomes easier to cope with as you get engrossed in the story. A good novel for those who like historical romance.

Island Bound by Deb Loughead

Island Bound (Pearson Education
NZ, 2007)

Island Bound is Hannah's story of discontent when she finds out that her family are moving to Bermuda for two years. Hannah loves her home and friends in Canada and doesn't want to be uprooted, despite her love of Bermuda, where the family have regular holidays. The family flies to Bermuda for a week to find a house to rent and prepare for the big transition. Whilst riding a bicycle along the road, Hannah encounters an apparition. Hannah's house-keeper believes it's the ghost of Martha Cox but she won't elaborate. Hannah is determined to uncover more.
   This children's story starts out slowly, so slowly it may bore many readers, which is a shame because once the plot about the ghost kicks in, at around chapter six, it's actually quite an engaging story. A good one for primary school aged children if they have the stamina to persevere with the first third of the book.

Tusi Tamasese webcast

Tusi Tamasese, Samoan born writer
and film director

For those interested in Pasifika movies, Tusi Tamasese, the Samoan born award winning writer and film director can be heard on the latest webcast from Pacific Voices-Commonwealth Writers. Tamasese talks to Kath Akuhata-Brown about his latest project 'The Orator'. To register, email Joe Byrde at j.byrde@commonwealth.int . The webcast is scheduled for Saturday the 15th of June, 2013, 6-6.45pm (NZST).

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.