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In 1858, as a response to Britain's colonization of New Zealand, the indigenous Maori in the country chose a monarch of their own. The queen, who was known as Te Ata, was the sixth to serve in the largely ceremonial, but highly respected, position. Te Ata became queen in May 1966, when her father died. She served her people for 40 years "with quiet dignity, humility, humor and warmth," said New Zealand Prime Minister Helen Clark. She helped raise the profile of the Maori by hosting foreign dignitaries who visited New Zealand, such as South African President Nelson Mandela and U.S. President Bill Clinton. In 1987, she was granted the Order of New Zealand, New Zealand's highest civilian honor. Dame Te Ata died August 15 at home at age 75. From This is True for 13 August 2006 Suggestions for further reading:
 By: Lloyd Jones List Price: $12.00 Amazon Price: $9.60 Editorial Review: In a novel that is at once intense, beautiful, and fablelike, Lloyd Jones weaves a transcendent story that celebrates the resilience of the human spirit and the power of narrative to transform our lives. On a copper-rich tropical island shattered by war, where the teachers have fled with most everyone else, only one white man chooses to stay behind: the eccentric Mr. Watts, object of much curiosity and scorn, who sweeps out the ruined schoolhouse and begins to read to the children each day from Charles Dickens’s classic Great Expectations. So begins this rare, original story about the abiding strength that imagination, once ignited, can provide. As artillery echoes in the mountains, thirteen-year-old Matilda and her peers are riveted by the adventures of a young orphan named Pip in a city called London, a city whose contours soon become more real than their own blighted landscape. As Mr. Watts says, “A person entranced by a book simply forgets to breathe.” Soon come the rest of the villagers, initially threatened, finally inspired to share tales of their own that bring alive the rich mythology of their past. But in a ravaged place where even children are forced to live by their wits and daily survival is the only objective, imagination can be a dangerous thing. From the Hardcover edition.  By: Christina Thompson List Price: $24.99 Amazon Price: $16.49 Editorial Review: An extraordinary love story between a Maori man and an American woman, that inspires a graceful, revelatory search for understanding about the centuries-old collision of two wildly different cultures. Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All is the story of the cultural collision between Westerners and the Maoris of New Zealand, told partly as a history of the complex and bloody period of contact between Europeans and the Maoris in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries, and partly as the story of Christina Thompson’s marriage to a Maori man. As an American graduate student studying literature in Australia, Thompson traveled on vacation to New Zealand, where she met a Maori known as “Seven.” Their relationship was one of opposites: he was a tradesman, she an intellectual; he came from a background of rural poverty, she from one of middle-class privilege; he was a “native,” she descended directly from “colonizers.” Nevertheless, they shared a similar sense of adventure and a willingness to depart from the customs of their families and forge a life together on their own. In this extraordinary book, which grows out of decades of research, Thompson explores the meaning of cross-cultural contact and the fascinating history of Europeans in the South Pacific, beginning with Abel Tasman’s discovery of New Zealand in 1642 and James Cook’s famous circumnavigations of 1769–79. Transporting us back and forth in time and around the world, from Australia to Hawaii to tribal NewZealand and finally to a house in New England that has ghosts of its own, Come on Shore and We Will Kill and Eat You All brings to life a lush variety of characters and settings. Yet at its core, it is the story of two people who, in making a life and a family together, bridge the gap between two worlds.  By: DK Publishing List Price: $25.00 Amazon Price: $16.50 Editorial Review: Recognized the world over by frequent flyers and armchair travelers alike, Eyewitness Travel Guides are the most colorful and comprehensive guides on the market. With beautifully commissioned photographs and spectacular 3-D aerial views revealing the charm of each destination, these amazing travel guides show what others only tell.  By: Marie M. Clay List Price: $28.00 Amazon Price: $25.20 Editorial Review: An Observation Survey has been used in educational systems worldwide. It has introduced thousands of teachers to ways of observing children's progress in the early years of learning about literacy. It has also helped them determine which children need supplementary teaching. Now the revised Second Edition updates this important sourcework with new data, ideas, and implementations from U.S. and U.K. classrooms. A comprehensive review of Reading Recovery in the United States by five distinguished authors is available separately at the RRCNA Web site. Authors Maribeth Schmitt, Billie Askew, Irene Fountas, Carol Lyons, and Gay Su Pinnell share their knowledge and provide persuasive evidence for the power of an early investment in changing futures of children. http://www.readingrecovery.org/sections/home/changingfutures.asp  By: Witi Ihimaera List Price: $8.00 Amazon Price: $8.00 Editorial Review: Eight-year-old Kahu, a member of the Maori tribe of Whangara, New Zealand, fights to prove her love, her leadership, and her destiny. Her people claim descent from Kahutia Te Rangi, the legendary "whale rider." In every generation since Kahutia, a male heir has inherited the title of chief. But now there is no male heir, and the aging chief is desperate to find a successor. Kahu is his only great-grandchild--and Maori tradition has no use for a girl. But when hundreds of whales beach themselves and threaten the future of the Maori tribe, it is Kahu who saves the tribe when she reveals that she has the whale rider's ancient gift of communicating with whales. Now available in simultaneous hardcover and paperback editions. Feature film in theaters in June 2003! |
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