Ariā and the Kūmara God: The Rising of Whānui

Ariā and the Kūmara God is the next book in the story started with The Astromancer. It is a continuation of events and readers will need to read The Astromancer first.

The story begins with Te Kōkōrangi imprisoned and Ariā is driven to put her sulkiness to one side and step into a leadership roll. The reader is thrown straight back into the action and these are treacherous missions! Ihimaera and Te Aho-White have somehow created an esoteric adventure-filled fantasy epic within 60 pages. The storytelling and illustration is on par with Tolkien, Le Guin and folklore classics. Ariā and the Kūmara God branches out from pūrākau around Matariki and tells of Ariā’s quest to climb into the realm of the atua.

At times some nuance and depth is lost in the concise manner of the book, the reader may wish this were a meaty novel. It would be great to see more of Ariā’s personality and the ways she interacts with her elders and fellow apprentices, to read about more meals they ate and the ways of life at that time.

Parents and teachers may chose to read these two book together and they would make great read-alouds for a confident narrator who could talk around and expand on all the wonderful small details of the book. Fingers crossed many more books are to come in this series, the journeys of Te Kōkōrangi and Ariā are not finished and we are all waiting excitedly to see what they do next.