What is Pacific Islands Literature?
Pacific Islands Literature refers to literature written and created by people of the Pacific. While many outsiders have written and fantasized about the mystery, allure, and sometimes dangers of the exotic Pacific, this particular genre pertains to writers native, or indigenous, to the islands. A vast array of languages, countries, and territories populate this region, but the genre itself is fairly new. Gaining more prominence and recognition in the late 20th century with such writers as Epeli Hau'ofa, Witi Ihimaera, Albert Wendt, Sia Figiel, and Patricia Grace emerging as writing powerhouses, Pacific Islands Literature is a growing genre abundant with more writers sharing their experiences and imagination in more diverse categories of literature.
This page represents just a sample of what is available within this genre, specific to children and young adults.
This page represents just a sample of what is available within this genre, specific to children and young adults.
The Duendes Hunter |
O Kaina Ke Kumu Koa |
Title: The Duendes Hunter
Author: Evelyn Flores Illustrator: Vivian Lujan Bryan Year: 1988 A Chamorro girl goes out in search of Guam's "Little People" the Duendes. She asks all of the animals in Guam to help her catch one, but none of the animals could help her catch one. |
Papunya School Book of Country and History |
The Old Frangipani Tree at Flying Fish Point |
Title: Papunya School Book of Country and History
Authors and Illustrators: Staff and students of Papunya School with Nadia Wheatley and Ken Searle Year: 2002 This multi-award-winning book tells the story of how Anangu from five different language groups came to live together at Papunya. From the time of first contacts with explorers, missionaries and pastoralists, through to the Papunya art movement and the Warumpi Band, this multi-layered text finally leads us to the development of the unique educational environment that is Papunya School. |
Title: The Old Frangipani Tree at Flying Fish Point
Author: Trina Saffioti Illustrator: Maggie Prewett Year: 2009 The story is of Young Faithy who comes from a poor family and when time comes for the school’s fancy dress carnival they can’t afford a costume, so the family all chips in with creativity and resourcefulness and Faithy is dressed up as an Island Princess. |
Mazin Grace |
Not Quite Men, No Longer Boys |
Title: Mazin Grace
Author: Dylan Coleman Year: 2012 Growing up on the Mission isn't easy for clever Grace Oldman. When her classmates tease her for not having a father, she doesn't know what to say. Pappa Neddy says her dad is the Lord God in Heaven, but that doesn't help when the Mission kids call her a bastard. As Grace slowly pieces together clues that might lead to answers, she struggles to find a place in a community that rejects her for reasons she doesn't understand. |
Title: Not Quite Men, No Longer Boys
Author: K. C. Laughton Year: 1999 Kenny was barely nineteen years old, a wide-eyed Aboriginal kid from the bush, when he left Australia for a tour of duty in Vietnam. From the fleshpots of Saigon to the 'sharp end', clearing mines at Nu Dat, there was a lot to learn for a young man in a strange country, fighting a murky, confusing war. Not Quite Men, no longer boys is the gritty moving story of Kenny's education in life and death - and the kinds of friendship that last a lifetime. |
Purple Threads |
Yami: The Autobiography of Yami Lester |
Title: Purple Threads
Author: Jeanine Leane Year: 2011 Growing up in the shifting landscape of Gundagai with her Nan and Aunties, Sunny spends her days playing on the hills near their farmhouse and her nights dozing by the fire, listening to the big women yarn about life over endless cups of tea. It is a life of freedom, protection, and love. But as Sunny grows she must face the challenge of being seen as different, and of having a mother whose visits are as unpredictable as the rain. |
Title: Yami: The Autobiography of Yami Lester
Author: Yami Lester Year: 2000 Yami's is a unique life of challenge and change, courage and humour. From the remote Centralian outback to the handback of Uluru, from bomb tests at Maralinga to the Royal Commission in London, Yami's memories are about the making of modern Australian history. |
Too Flash |
Potiki |
Title: Too Flash
Author: Melissa Lucashenko Year: 2002 Bring problems to us before they're too big to handle, the Principal advises Zo when she arrives at her new city school. But good advice isn't much help to Zo. Her Mum's still a workaholic, and her best friend is still a thousand miles away, back home. Zo soon teams up with Missy. She's cheeky, smart, a mean soccer player and believes in magic. She comes from a tough family that doesn't take crap from anyone and it shows. She's all muscles and attitude like a cattle dog on the warpath. Zo is more laid back - having money makes for a bigger comfort zone, even if you are fat and black. A showdown can't be far away when Zo and Missy's worlds collide. It's not a racial issue - or is it? At school or clubbing or stomping the bush on Kulcha Kamp, the girls are on edgy ground. But in the darkness of night, each of them finds a special magic of her own... |
Title: Potiki
Author: Patricia Grace Year: 2001 In a small coastal community threatened by developers who would ravage their lands it is a time of fear and confusion - and growing anger. The prophet child Tokowaru-i-te-Marama shares his people's struggles against bulldozers and fast money talk. When dramatic events menace the marae, his grief and rage threaten to burst beyond the confines of his twisted body. His all-seeing eye looks forward to a strange and terrible new dawn. |
The Adventures of Vela |
Grace Beside Me |
Title: The Adventures of Vela
Author: Albert Wendt Year: 2009 Journey through the many stories and worlds of the immortal Vela - Vela, so red and ugly at birth they called him the Cooked; Vela the lonely admirer of pigs and the connoisseur of feet; Vela the lover of song maker Mulialofa the Boneman. Follow him down through the centuries on his travels, encountering the single-minded society of the Tagatanei and the Smellocracy of Olfact. Accompany him, too, as he recounts the stories of Lady Nafanua, the fearsome warrior queen, before whose powers Palagi priests and travelling chroniclers still bow down today. |
Title: Grace Beside Me
Author: Sue McPherson Year: 2012 Written from teenager girl Fuzzy Mac's perspective, Grace Beside Me is a quirky, warmly rendered story of home and family life in a small town. |
Calypso Summer |
Double Native |
Title: Calypso Summer
Author: Jared Thomas Year: 2014 Calypso Summer is a story told by Calypso, a young Nukunu man, fresh out of high school in Rastafarian guise. After failing to secure employment in sports retail, his dream occupation, Calypso finds work at the Henley Beach Health Food shop where his boss pressures him to gather Aboriginal plants for natural remedies. Growing up in urban Adelaide and with little understanding of his mother's traditional background, Calypso endeavours to find the appropriate native plants. This leads him to his Nukunu family in the southern Flinders Ranges and the discovery of a world steeped in cultural knowledge. The support of a sassy, smart, young Ngadjuri girl, with a passion for cricket rivalling his own, helps Calypso to reconsider his Rastafarian facade and understand how to take charge of his future. |
Title: Double Native
Author: Fiona Wirrer-George Oochunyung Year: 2012 Growing up 'on country' on the west coast of Queensland's Cape York Peninsula in the 1970s and '80s, Fiona Wirrer-George Oochunyung had an idyllic traditional life. At the age of 16, she decided to pursue her dream of performing and moved to Sydney to attend the NAISDA Dance College. There she studied with the legendary Page brothers before they founded Bangarra Dance Theatre and met her future husband and father of her three daughters. But the missing piece of her life was her father. As a young woman, she finds her father and carves out a fragile relationship with him. This inspires her to better understand her Austrian ancestry and how it meshes with her Indigenous identity. |
Once Were Warriors |
The Whale Rider |
Title: Once Were Warriors
Author: Alan Duff Year: 1994 Alan Duff's ground-breaking first novel is one of the most talked-about books ever published in New Zealand and is now the basis of a major New Zealand film. This hard hitting story is a frank and uncompromising portrayal of Maori in New Zealand society. It is a raw and powerful story in which everyone is a victim until the strength and vision of one woman transcends brutality and leads the way to a new life. |
Title: The Whale Rider
Author: Witi Ihimaera Year: 2008 Witi Ihimaera's timeless story tells how the courage of one girl in standing against the tide of tradition enables her tribe to become reconnected with their ancestral life force. |
Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa |
Animals, At the Billabong, and People and Places |
Title: Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa
Author: Tina Makereti Year: 2010 Vulnerable gods and goddesses Children born with unusual gifts The protection offered by Mountains Birds with bad timing Once Upon a Time in Aotearoa explores a world where mythological characters and stories become part of everyday life. Old and new worlds co-exist, cultures mingle and magic happens. |
Titles: Animals, At the Billabong, People and Places
Author and Illustrator: Debbie Austin Year: 2008 The series was created to help raise awareness of the importance of using Australian Aboriginal symbols to teach stories top our young in all cultures, as they have been for over 60,000 years. In this delightful new range of books for babies and children, we discover the value of learning more about the spirituality of the Australian landscape and its indigenous people and embrace an Australian identity infused with existing native wisdom and lore. |