The lost tail by Patricia Bernard
Ill. by Tricia Oktober. Ford Street Publishing, 2013.hbk., RRP
$A22.95.
Today is the day! It has arrived! The day the Bundi Boys go to the
Goroka Show where they will perform their snake dance, along with
thousands of other participants wearing their traditional costumes
and sharing their dances and rituals at this annual gathering. But
there is no hopping in a car for them - it's a long and arduous five
day trek through jungles and rivers and over mountains, while
watching out for angry cassowaries and wild pigs, and a host of
other hazards, particularly the red-skinned poroi hana spirits,
because Goroka is in the remote Eastern Highlands of Papua New
Guinea.
Nura's job is to carry the snake's tail in this traditional
warriors' dance, but when they finally arrive at Goroka, he is so
exhausted he falls asleep, waking much later than he wanted and
finding his friends gone. How will he find them amongst this large,
colourful festival which attracts tribespeople from all over the
region, all decked in their most garish feathered finery? Nobody he
asks has seen them ... where is that elusive snake's tail? Will the
Bundi Boys be able to dance for the judges if he is not there?
This is the most beautiful book which works on so many levels.
Patricia Bernard always writes an engaging tale (if you're not
familiar with Duffy, Everyone's Dog, seek it out), against
an authentic backdrop of a country which is Australia's nearest
neighbour yet so little is known. You feel Nura's concern as he goes
from group to group, reminding himself of his mother's words that
Bundi warriors never give up. And then there is the lusciousness of
Tricia Oktober's illustrations - so bright and colourful and so
realistic that they just leap out of the page. (She is among a tiny
group of my favourite illustrators.) She was an inspired choice and
just exactly what this text needed.
Whether read aloud or read alone this is a book of such richness,
there is something new to be discovered and explored from
Kindergarten to Year 6. You can't ask for much more than that.
Barbara Braxton