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Sky Dancer Audiobook by Witi Ihimaera
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Title: Sky Dancer
Author: Witi Ihimaera
Narrator: George Henare
Format: Unabridged
Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-07-14
Publisher: Penguin Books NZ
Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 3 votes
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
A fine novel from Witi Ihimaera in which a great story about a feisty teenager is interwoven with a dazzling trip through Maori mythology.
Stroppy teenager Skylark O'Shea is on holiday with her mother at a town on the coast. But all is not what it seems. What is the threat facing the town and the birds of the forest? Where do the two old charismatic Maori women Hoki and Bella fit in?
Skylark becomes embroiled in a prophecy that much to her dismay involves her in an extraordinary journey. Soon she is pitting her wits in a race of breathtaking dimension, a dazzling trip through Maori mythology.
This novel by Witi Ihimaera is fascinating and unique. At one level it is a romp and a rollercoaster ride that sometimes reminds you of Lord of the Rings. At other levels it is a brilliant accomplishment of combining this with new ways of exploring Maori myth.
Members Reviews:
not Ihimaera's best book, but it's far from bad
Witi Ihimaera is a well-known NZ author; outside of New Zealand, he's probably best known as the author of Whale Rider, made into a film a few years back. He's also one of my favourite NZ authors, although he writes of a world I never saw any more than glimpses of, growing up. I think perhaps that's a lot of what fascinates me; how there could be this whole entire world existing right alongside ours, all the time, and yet all we ever saw were displaced edges, thrust into classrooms and learnt by rote, or glimpsed in passing but never understood. I think probably this sort of thing occurs wherever you have one culture alongside another; even as some merging occurs, some deeper parts just never seem to transfer over.
Sky Dancer is an interweaving of the mythic and the prosaic; on the one thread, we have a portion of the Maori creation myths, where the god Tane opens the gates of Heaven for the birds to claim the land and the sea; and on the other thread, a young woman in modern day NZ fleeing with her mother to small-town Tuapa, trying to escape her mother's problems.
The threads cross in a prophecy written in the Great Book of Birds, and handed down from mother to daughter amonst the handmaidens of Tane: that in the third year of the second millennium as it is counted by Man, Armageddon will come; the sky will open, and birds of the future will stream through to fight once again the Great Battle where the seabirds, the manu moana, will challenge for dominion over the land birds, the manu whenua. However all is not hopeless; as well as this second chance granted to the seabirds, Tane will send to the landbirds a chick to assist in the battle - the young woman, Skylark O'Shea. Who, as it turns out, is contrary, antagonistic, and doesn't believe a word of any of this...
Sky Dancer is the story of how the first battle between birds, but mostly of the second; of how it came to be that it was to be fought at all; of how a reluctant Skylark was dragged along to help fight a battle she didn't believe was anything more than a myth, helped along by an assortment of characters across the length of the country, and hounded by seabirds at every step.
It's not Ihimaera's best book, but it's far from bad. The plot falters here and there - gets a little too caught up in intermissions, and a little too preachy here and there - but overall, it's a good read; and if you like discovering myths and stories of other cultures, then it's a very good book for this.
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Title: Sky Dancer
Author: Witi Ihimaera
Narrator: George Henare
Format: Unabridged
Length: 13 hrs and 43 mins
Language: English
Release date: 07-07-14
Publisher: Penguin Books NZ
Ratings: 3.5 of 5 out of 3 votes
Genres: Fiction, Contemporary
Publisher's Summary:
A fine novel from Witi Ihimaera in which a great story about a feisty teenager is interwoven with a dazzling trip through Maori mythology.
Stroppy teenager Skylark O'Shea is on holiday with her mother at a town on the coast. But all is not what it seems. What is the threat facing the town and the birds of the forest? Where do the two old charismatic Maori women Hoki and Bella fit in?
Skylark becomes embroiled in a prophecy that much to her dismay involves her in an extraordinary journey. Soon she is pitting her wits in a race of breathtaking dimension, a dazzling trip through Maori mythology.
This novel by Witi Ihimaera is fascinating and unique. At one level it is a romp and a rollercoaster ride that sometimes reminds you of Lord of the Rings. At other levels it is a brilliant accomplishment of combining this with new ways of exploring Maori myth.
Members Reviews:
not Ihimaera's best book, but it's far from bad
Witi Ihimaera is a well-known NZ author; outside of New Zealand, he's probably best known as the author of Whale Rider, made into a film a few years back. He's also one of my favourite NZ authors, although he writes of a world I never saw any more than glimpses of, growing up. I think perhaps that's a lot of what fascinates me; how there could be this whole entire world existing right alongside ours, all the time, and yet all we ever saw were displaced edges, thrust into classrooms and learnt by rote, or glimpsed in passing but never understood. I think probably this sort of thing occurs wherever you have one culture alongside another; even as some merging occurs, some deeper parts just never seem to transfer over.
Sky Dancer is an interweaving of the mythic and the prosaic; on the one thread, we have a portion of the Maori creation myths, where the god Tane opens the gates of Heaven for the birds to claim the land and the sea; and on the other thread, a young woman in modern day NZ fleeing with her mother to small-town Tuapa, trying to escape her mother's problems.
The threads cross in a prophecy written in the Great Book of Birds, and handed down from mother to daughter amonst the handmaidens of Tane: that in the third year of the second millennium as it is counted by Man, Armageddon will come; the sky will open, and birds of the future will stream through to fight once again the Great Battle where the seabirds, the manu moana, will challenge for dominion over the land birds, the manu whenua. However all is not hopeless; as well as this second chance granted to the seabirds, Tane will send to the landbirds a chick to assist in the battle - the young woman, Skylark O'Shea. Who, as it turns out, is contrary, antagonistic, and doesn't believe a word of any of this...
Sky Dancer is the story of how the first battle between birds, but mostly of the second; of how it came to be that it was to be fought at all; of how a reluctant Skylark was dragged along to help fight a battle she didn't believe was anything more than a myth, helped along by an assortment of characters across the length of the country, and hounded by seabirds at every step.
It's not Ihimaera's best book, but it's far from bad. The plot falters here and there - gets a little too caught up in intermissions, and a little too preachy here and there - but overall, it's a good read; and if you like discovering myths and stories of other cultures, then it's a very good book for this.