Bi-lingual for children

Press, 17 April 1982, Page 16

Bi-lingual for children

Te Kuia mete Pungawerewere/The Kuia and the Spider. By Patricia Grace, illustrated by Robyn Kahukiwa. Maori version translated by Syd Melbourne with Keri Kaa. Maori version, soft cover, 32 pp. $4.95. English version, hard cover, 32 pp. $10.95. (Reviewed by John Wilson) This charmingly simple children's story, accompanied by equally charming, colourful illustrations, is about a friendly rivalry between an old woman and a spider who shares her kitchen. (“Kuia” is the Maori term for an old woman, but the exact Maori flavour of the word is difficult to convey in English. It is one of those Maori words, as the title of the English version insists, which should enter common New Zealand usage in its own right.) The story has a true Maori flavour. While delighting the young to whom it will be read, it should help adults reading it to them to have a better insight into

aspects of the Maori character and of Maori ways. . There are two books — a Maori text (in the soft-cover edition) and an English one (in the hard-cover) — to accompany the same illustrations. Having a children’s literature in Maori as well as English will be a mark of major progress along the way to New Zealand society becoming truly multi-cultural. It is hard to imagine a better book than this one to serve as an early step along this way. It is only a pity that both versions are not available in both soft and hard covers. The book deserves to be bought in sufficient numbers to justify the further publication of English soft-cover and Maori hard-cover editions. Bilingual households will want to own both and it will do no harm for English-speaking households to acquire the Maori version, if only to acquaint youngsters with the existence of the Maori tongue and, perhaps, give them a chance to hear a story familiar to them from the English version read aloud in Maori.