Tuesday, April 22, 2008

The Whale Rider - Witi Ihimaera

the whale rider
witi ihimaera
c. 1988
150 pages

*may contain spoilers*

This was my "Native People's" choice for the Expanding Horizons Challenge (see sidebar). Being from the US and living in an area of the country where there is a heavy Native American population, I decided to read something about a different Native people, the Maori's of New Zealand. I know very little about their culture and history and so it was fun to learn about something new.

I had seen the movie of this book a few years ago. I remember liking it a lot, but I didn't remember too much about the story.

I loved that the whales had a voice and characters. They had their own thoughts and feelings. The author's voice, how he brought the legend of Paikia to life was very well done, showing us the parallels between then and now.

I also thought the author's voice was interesting. It wasn't just an omniscient speaker, it was a character, Uncle Rawiri. Though I thought it was interesting that he wasn't an important character, just someone who was there and witnessed what happened.

This was a beautiful little story. I want to go watch the movie now.

5/5

1 comment:

Melissa said...

Maybe I was having a bad day; everyone seems to love this so much, I'm feeling like I missed something. Perhaps it's time to go back and re-read??