The right to free speech,
the right to education and work,
for everyone, right?
As the only girl squished in among so many rambunctious brothers, Sofia feels overlooked at home. Even her 13th birthday celebration in 1976 gets postponed when the boys get silly with darts and have to go to emergency room!
She gets too much attention in their small town school – for being Samoan, for reading her speech at assembly, for supporting the march by Maori people protesting theft of their traditional lands.
The New Zealand economy has turned bad, so the government says people with dark skin are the problem, making native Maori and immigrant Pacific Islanders alike easy targets for police harassment.
Sofia is now old enough to get a milk delivery job like her big brother. Despite all the heavy glass bottles and hearing complaints about price increases, she can save up for those groovy tall white boots she sees on TV!
Yay! Her grandparents are coming from Samoa to visit, so the whole family will take time off from school and work to go meet them in Auckland.
Oh, no… Polynesian Panthers are being jailed, just because they protest news silence about the government’s dawn raids of homes where an Islander might have overstayed their work or visitor visa!
Hmmm… Sofia has to write a new speech for the area competition about something she knows a lot about… like Islander people being the only group of overstayers being arrested.
Through Sofia’s diary entries and sketches, the 1976 Maori and Islander protests come alive, echoing the American Civil Rights movement that she learns about in school, as well as the current ICE raids in the US.
Reading what folks in other places and situations have written is a great way to know more about them – originally published by Scholastic New Zealand, brought to North America by Levine Querido, with discussion guide here: https://www.levinequerido.com/dawn-raid.
How do you support family members in difficult times?
**kmm
Book info: Dawn Raid / Pauline Vaeluaga Smith; illustrated by Mat Hunkin. Lantern/ Levine Querido, 2023. [author interview https://www.thesapling.co.nz/2018-04-17-author-interview-pauline-vaeluaga-smith/] [illustrator site https://www.mathunkin.com/illustration] [publisher site https://www.levinequerido.com/dawn-raid] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.