Today ‘Alisi Tatafu and I launched our children’s book Rise of the To’a (the MMT story) online in Tonga. We would have been there if it wasn’t for COVID 
but there’s still so much to be thankful for, especially learning how beautiful Tongan culture is through this whole process.
Today we had a cool celebration of 4 bilingual children’s books I worked on with young people of Māori, Samoan, Chinese and Hindi heritage. The kaupapa of the books is how to survive natural disasters. The theme of the series is: You Ready? You can get copies from Auckland Emergency Management.
Tonight I went to watch Rosalina by the Sau e Siva Creatives at Mangere Arts Centre. The guys adapted the story from a legend in my book, Samoan Heroes. It’s pretty cool seeing the way they took the story from off the page and brought it to life on stage with a celebration of Samoan culture,…
First showing of the art from a new book I’m making for kids about Hamiso Tabuai-Fidow aka “Hammer” an NRL player with the Dolphins. It’s awesome working with Saibai Island artist Tyrown Waigana who’s from the same clan as Hamiso. I’m so excited about this book not just because I get to work with Tyrown,…
Today I visited Wesley College and spoke to the students about dreaming big and how reading helps us discover amazing things about ourselves we never knew before.
“Thank you to former MC student & Author Extraordinare David Riley for the gift of boxes of new books to families in South Auckland so they can start, or add to their own kāinga pukapuka – home libraries. The books are culturally specific e.g. a box of Maori books for a Maori family, Samoan books…
“Hi David. Just thought I would let you know about a mum who came in this morning to tell me about her son last night. He normally kind of grunts when she asks him about his day but last night he followed her around the house to relive your talk pretty much word by word. …
