How Many Times? / Me Hia Rawa Ngā Wā?

'How Many Times? / Me Hia Rawa Ngā Wā?' is a bilingual picture book. On each page is the English version followed by its translation into Te Reo Māori.

The book centres on a mother trying to get her children to help out. It carefully uses the idiom of words falling on deaf ears by literally leaving the words ‘hanging from the ceiling’ or ‘falling to the floor’. The story revolves around a number of situations. The children only start listening when it looks like Grandad is getting squashed with the words.

The illustrations in the book are beautiful. Some discussion may be needed early in the book for younger children to see that ‘the letters fell on the pillow and lay there’ - what does this mean? It’s definitely a book for teaching your children to help out around the house, but can equally be used in the classroom too. This can be used as a read aloud to your own children or in a classroom. This nicely leads into an art activity or a reading/writing activity to discover other idioms and what they mean.