Synopsis
Things have been quiet in the forest and Kiwi and Bat have
gone back to their old lives. When the cry goes up calling for help they find a
frightened tuatara who is sure she has seen a moa. How can that be? Moa haven’t
been around for hundreds of years. Disbelieving, Bat and Kiwi dismiss all of
Tuatara’s evidence that moa have returned but when the moa makes direct contact
with Tuatara we find that the huge bird is just lonely and in need of a friend
(hoa), and off they go into the mountains together. There Are No Moa, e Hoa
is loosely based on the traditional Aesop’s Fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf,
with the twist that the tuatara believes what she is saying and Bat and Kiwi
are the sceptical ones.
About the Author
Melinda Szymanik is an award-winning author of
picture books, short stories and novels for children. Her books include The
Were-Nana, winner of the Children’s Choice award at the 2009 NZ Post
Children’s Book Awards, and Fuzzy Doodle, an international White
Raven award winner in 2017. Melinda lives with her family in Tāmaki Makaurau
(Auckland). This is her seventh picture book with Scholastic.
About the Illustrator
Isobel Te Aho-White (Ngati
Kahungunu, Ngai Tahu) is an illustrator based in Te Whanganui-a-Tara
(Wellington). Her book Santa’s Worst Christmas, written by Pania Tahau-Hodges and Bryony
Walker (Huia, 2019) was nominated for the 2020 NCYA Book
Awards across four categories, and her book Whiti: Colossal Squid of
the Deep (Te Papa Press, 2020) written by Victoria Cleal, won a
Whitley award for best children’s book. Bestseller, and winner of a 2022
Storylines Notable Book Award, Matariki
Around the World (Scholastic, 2022), written by Miriama Kamo and Rangi Mātāmua,
is one of her recent titles.
Comprehension Questions
1) What evidence does
Tuatara have that moa have returned?
2) How does the story
explain away Tuatara’s evidence?
3) Why is Tuatara
afraid? What does she think Moa wants to do to her?
4) Is Moa real, a
ghost, or a figment of Tuatara’s imagination? What evidence makes you think
that? Does what we believe her to be change the way we think about the ending?
Shared Learning and Discussion Points
1) Kiwi says his are
the biggest bird feet in the forest. Is this true?
2) How long ago did moa
walk the land? Why are they no longer here?
3) In the story Moa
says they are vegetarian. What did moa eat? Where did they live? In
the forest? In the mountains? Or somewhere else?
4) Tuatara says she is
called a living fossil. How long have tuatara existed – would there been tuatara
around when dinosaurs walked the earth?
5) The story is
loosely based on the famous Aesop’s Fable, The Boy Who Cried Wolf. Ask the
students if they recognise which fable the story is similar to. Read the
original fable to them and ask them what the similarities and differences are.
6) This book has an
underlying message about friendship, as suggested by the title. Who makes the
best friend for Tuatara? Share why you think so. Why does Moa say that Tuatara
is the only one that can see them? And is everyone trying to be a good friend
... or not?
Activities
1) Tuatara drew a cave
painting to show where she’d gone. Draw your own picture of Tuatara riding on
Moa’s back. Or draw a picture in the style of a cave painting, as illustrated
on p.30 of There Are No Moa, e Hoa.
2) Research how big a moa
feather would have been. Is there a New Zealand native bird (living or extinct)
that might have had bigger feathers? Which New Zealand native bird has the
smallest feather and how big is that? Make a model of both the biggest and the
smallest feather and compare them.
3) There are some fun
and interesting expressions used in the story
‘… too true, too
true … the right question is who’
‘… my bones know’
‘The ground
trembles. The trees shiver!’
‘… a full moon rose
like the huge golden eye of a ruru.’
Using one of these lines
as inspiration, write a poem.
Melinda Szymanik
November 2022
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