Stand Your Ground

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.

On Thursday I attended an event called the May Meet Up at the Mangere Arts Centre. It was a gathering of artists and people with dreams from Mangere-Otahuhu and was such an inspiring evening.  We heard about these awesome projects that are happening in our community and country like: Anonymouz creating a soundtrack to help blind people…

I’ve been working with children from the Hindi College in West Auckland. We’re making a book that teaches children what to do in a flood. It’s been awesome learning Indian culture from these children and teachers and finding fun ways to incorporate their culture into the story. The project is one of four I’m doing…

To celebrate Olympics year I asked Kiwi Olympians and Paralympians to write letters to young people sharing what they learned about “success” from their experiences in Tokyo. Then I got each letter illustrated by a different Kiwi children’s book illustrator and put them together in this new work, Standing In My Own Shoes. There’s letters…

A massive fa’afetai lava to Jacob Farani-Faga and Sia Farani-Faga for this awesome short film about the book Sāmoa which we made this year. Jake, his wife Sia, and their children recently moved to Sāmoa and his son is in a book we launched in June. Sometimes you meet people you click with immediately as…

This term I’m working with some inspiring children and their whānau at St Francis Catholic School in Auckland. We’re making a book about Matariki – how it inspires them in their lives.