Tales of Polynesia: Folktales from Hawai'i, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Samoa - ★★★.¼

ILLUSTRATOR: Yiling Changues

AUTHOR: N.A.

GENRE: Folklore

RATING: 3.25 stars.

In a Nutshell: An interesting collection of folklore from four Polynesian places. Liked the stories; didn’t like the presentation. This is more of a collector’s edition than a children’s storybook.

This is a collection of fifteen folktales taken from Hawaii, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Samoa. The stories are clubbed into four groups: Tricksters; Creatures of Earth and Sea; Life and Death; and Family.

The stories are similar in feel to most traditional lore, in that they are somewhat dark and not exactly straightforward and not necessarily with neat or happy endings. Nature and fae folk have an important role to play in every tale. The location is the highlight, and the richness of the island locale can be perceived in each story.

These stories have all been taken from works published in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. As the original text hasn’t been modified much, the stories feel somewhat clunky in flow. The roundabout writing style, and the vocabulary level makes this suitable only to teens and older readers.

The length of the stories is quite varied; while most are just about 3-4 pages long, a few are quite lengthy, with one story reaching 24 pages.

Some of the unusual names/terms are accompanied by a footnote. But many of these notes were totally useless. For instance, why would the Latin/scientific name of a traditional plant be helpful to me the lay reader in understanding the story better? Wouldn’t its relevance in local culture be a more useful bit of information? Or when I see the name ‘Mohoalii’ in the text, how is learning that it is the alternate name of ‘Kamohoalii’ going to help me if I don’t even know who Kamohoalii is or what he does!?

I was also disappointed in the illustrations. When the blurb promised ‘a beautifully illustrated collection’, I expected the pages to be filled with artwork. However, the stories are presented in a plain text format. Each story has only one main full-page colour illustration, which appears just before the story begins. The illustrations also weren’t really appealing to me, but this can’t be taken as a concrete negative as art is always subjective.

This would work well for readers who have a passion for folklore and would want to explore beautiful tales from places whose lore isn’t commonly found in print. I just wish the writing style had made it a more accessible book to a wider audience. We do need more indigenous stories from the Polynesian islands.

My thanks to Chronicle Books and NetGalley for the DRC of “Tales of Polynesia: Folktales from Hawai'i, New Zealand, Tahiti, and Samoa”. This review is voluntary and contains my honest opinion about the book.