Aunties
Maria Samuela’s affecting story chronicles the week leading up to the narrator’s mother’s funeral, with all its sadness and confusion and overwhelming sense of loss.
About this resource
Series: School Journal Level 4 November 2020
Reading year level: 7
Category: Non-fiction
Topics: Aunty, change, changing body, Cook Island, culture, death, family, funeral, grief, loss, menstruation, Pacific, period, puberty, Ngutu‘are tangata, resilience, support, wellbeing, whānau
Aunties
Words by Maria Samuela
llustrations by Leilani Isara
The story’s one light is the presence of the narrator’s extended family – and the sense that her many aunties will continue to be there in the future, providing the kind of support and love that usually comes from a mother.
The text includes references to a girl’s first period.
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More from this series
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School Journal Level 4 November 2020
Inside this Journal are three stories (Far from Home; Dodinga, 1858; Aunties), two articles (Journeys of Discovery: The Life of Alfred Wallace; Rongoā For The Land), one poem (Shrinking Violet), and one play (Like, Share, Subscribe).
1 of 7Journeys of Discovery - The Life of Alfred Wallace
Wallace’s story is a classic one of adventure, talent, and persistence before he was able to offer one of the most ground-breaking scientific theories of all time.
2 of 7Rongoā For The Land
Restoring the whenua on the Māhia Peninsula
3 of 7Dodinga 1858
This story provides some detail about the experiences the famous amateur naturalist Alfred Wallace had while travelling in far-flung places of the globe, hoping to crack the mysteries of evolution.
4 of 7Far from Home
The rest of the kids were playing hopscotch or tag with their friends. No one bothered to pay any attention to the figure hunched in the pōhutukawa tree.
5 of 7Shrinking Violet
This sophisticated poem plays with the natural tension created when a poem’s form doesn’t seem to match the content.
6 of 7Like Share Subscribe
This humorous play is a take on a familiar scenario: thoughtless online behaviour and our sometimes unhealthy relationships with screens.
7 of 7
