Watercress Tuna: Maori Edition

by Patricia Grace

An unusual tuna with a magic throat leaps out of his stream and visits a number of children in Champion Street. To each he gives an article of clothing for dancing, or a musical instrument. The children are all from different ethnic communities living in New Zealand. On Champion Street the children all come together and dance all day and all night.

Genres: Picture Books, Childrens

Paperback

First published January 1, 1984

About the author

Patricia Grace is a major New Zealand novelist, short story writer and children’s writer, of Ngati Toa, Ngati Raukawa and Te Ati Awa descent, and is affiliated to Ngati Porou by marriage. Grace began writing early, while teaching and raising her family of seven children, and has since won many national and international awards, including the Kiriyama Pacific Rim Book Prize for fiction, the Deutz Medal for Fiction, and the Neustadt International Prize for Literature, widely considered the most prestigious literary prize after the Nobel. A deeply subtle, moving and subversive writer, in 2007 Grace received a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for her services to literature.

Reviews

[Laura Skeaff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is brilliant. Why is it not in the top 10 children's books lists for Aotearoa? A tuna with a magical throat jumps out of Cannons Creek in Porirua and visits all of the children on Champion Street. Each child pulls out a taonga from the tuna's wide-open mouth, something related to their cultural heritage, and proceeds to dance. When the tuna's puku is empty, they all come out on the street and dance through the night. The next morning the children fall asleep cradling their taonga. I love this book because it is about real children in a real place who are filled with happiness by connecting with their cultures, with music and dance, and with each other. Patricia Grace and Robyn Kahukiwa are a match made in heaven, and the illustrations are a small window into the lives of people from Aotearoa and the Pacific.

[Guilherme Semionato · Rating 3 out of 5]

The oddest thing. Apparently it's a classic in New Zeland: https://www.facebook.com/back2naturec...

[kereru · Rating 5 out of 5]

wtf patricia grace wrote this

[River · Rating 4 out of 5]

Love the art

[Lei · Rating 4 out of 5]

All time classic book I was read to when I was in Primary school! owesome!