Author(s): Werohia

Children's Māori Books

This delightful picturebook tells the tale of three quirky whitebait friends - Whitey, Freddy and Tere - and their lifetime struggle to survive their home-bound journey. Having avoided being eaten at the egg-stage by predator mice (who think whitebait are chocolate) they leave behind the coastal waters of Aotearoa and head inland. But after the 15th August they have an upstream battle. They suddenly become morsels and fritters. If they survive the human fritter craze, slimy under-water things watch them closely. Then Freddy suddenly disappears inside a slippery, slimy, slithery eel. However, whanaungatanga (kinship) prevails and without hesitation, Whitey swims into the eel to save his friend. Tere tries desperately to distract the eel from juicing his friends up. How do they possibly escape such an awesome foe?