The story of the whale rider was written by Witi Ihimaera. This novel was written in 1987. The novel is about a girl named Kahu who is eight years old. Kahu wants her grandfather’s love and attention, But all his attention goes towards his duties of being chief of Maori in Whangara. This tribe descended from the legendary tale of “the whale rider” since then the chief has always been a male.
I would recommend this novel to other year twelve students because a key theme in the novel is fate, Kahus dream is to become the first female chief of the Maori tribe. She wants to be the next “whale rider”. This fate is very difficult for kahu to achieve as the old tradition was the chief was always a male, Kahu cannot do it alone, Kahu gets help from the reuhua, nannie flowers and Ravi jane. This could be relevant to other year twelve students because many people have different fates in their life.
Personally I would recommend this novel to other year twelve students because it is a story about the Maori tradition, This being that the leaders should only be males this is because they believed in tradition and for generations before hand the younger boys were always trained to become chief, Kahus grandfather was very frustrated with the birth of kahu as she is a girl and the tradition of chief gets inherited by the first born child. This could be significant to a year twelve student because many families in today’s generation are Maori but have very little information on how their traditions were decades ago and how different it is to society today, as females can now be leaders like jacinda ardern and queen elizabeth.
I would recommend the “Whale Rider ‘’ to other year twelve students because this story is about destiny. For example Kahu has the destiny to get her grandfather’s love and affection and to become the first female chief of the maori iwi, This novel shows Kahu overcoming the discrimination to fufill her own dreams and destiny. Other year twelve students could take this novel significantly because it is about fulfilling your own destiny no matter how impossible it may seem. Some year twelve students have a destiny to carry that seems impossible so this novel could inspire the audience to continue on with their destiny.
Overall this novel would be good to recommend to other year twelve students because it has many key themes like fate, tradition and destiny as well as many others. Kahu demonstrated to the audience that if you put your mind to it anything is possible even if it seems impossible, like saving the whale beached up, and becoming the first female to be chief, this could give other year twelve students an idea that no matter what happens anything is possible.
