BRAVE KAHU AND THE PORANGI MAGPIE

Brave K?hu and the P?rangi Magpie is an exciting and action-packed animal story, featuring two k?hu (hawk) sisters who must save their injured baby brother before a flock of evil magpies destroys them, or a coming flood takes their home.

Poto is the perfect fledgling the apple of her father's eye and a natural hunter, flyer anything a hawk is supposed to be good at, Poto can do best of all. She can't understand why her sister Whet? gets annoyed with her it's not her fault she's good at everything! As for her baby brother Ari, he's so weird and annoying. After their mother is killed by a flock of magpies, Poto and Whet? have to get an injured Ari to safety before a coming earthquake arrives which will unleash a flood and destroy their home. With the help of a rag tag and big-hearted bunch of birds, they journey through the valley to higher land, keeping an eye out for an evil flock of magpies who are on a mission to take back the land for their own, avoiding a mythical ferocious creature, hiding from humans and dogs, and more. They each learn more about each other and themselves along the way, and come to grow their acceptance and love for one another despite their differences. Can they stop T? the makipai and her evil flock from ruining the harmony of the valley? Will aroha win out over hate? And will Poto realise that everyone has something special to offer, even if they can't do everything quite like she does? Brave K?hu and the P?rangi Magpie is a cracking children's adventure story in the vein of Watership Down, from emerging M?ori author Shelley Burne-Field. Shelley Burne-Field (S?moa, Ngati Mutunga, Ngati R?rua, P?keh?) is an author from Te Matau-a-M?ui Hawke's Bay. She writes articles and creative non-fiction as well as fiction of all sorts, including short stories. This is her first children's story. She is an alumni of the Master of Creative Writing from Auckland University 2020 and also Te Papa Tupu mentoring programme. Her story 'Speaking in Tongues' was the only New Zealand Finalist in the 2022 Commonwealth Short Story Prize. Her work is now in print in anthologies around the world, and has appeared in Newsroom and on RNZ. Her story 'Pinching out Dahlias' is the most read short story published in Reading Room. Shelley is a proud member of the NZSA.