New Zealand – 1970’s. Sofia is turning 13 and excited to become a teenager. Her plans to visit the brand new, first ever McDonalds Burger Restaurant in New Zealand are wrecked by her two little brothers, the boy from next door and a set of darts. A quick drive to the hospital and all is well.

Sofia is a normal kiwi teenager of the 70’s. Besides her two little brothers, she has an older sister and an older brother named Lenny. They are a close knit family, with much laughter and support for each other.

Sofia is a good student, loving maths and writing, doing well in a class speech competition. This is a time of the Muldoon government and the NZ economy is not doing well. This government decides to target overstayers, particularly Pacific Islanders, portraying them as job takers and villains of the economy.

Sofia’s work for her speech competition has introduced her to Martin Luther King and Kate Sheppard – both influential in standing up for human rights. The more she learns about the unfairness of the NZ government to Islanders across NZ, the more she feels this is against human rights. Learning of Dawn Raids upsets her further. These are indiscriminate raids by NZ Police to Islander households, whether they are overstayers or even NZ citizens like her family.

Lenny is interested in the Polynesian Panthers, a group that is portrayed to be a troublesome gang by the media, but is anything but. This interest causes trouble in their close knit family, until a Dawn Raid is up close and personal.

Dawn Raid felt like a time portal to me, stepping back into my own childhood of the seventies. This will be a perfect class read aloud for NZ students aged 10+ as they follow Sofia’s diary entries of day to day life of 1970’s New Zealand. From her favourite lollies, fashion items, TV programs and popular music, Sofia also shares her milk run, frustration at the trouble her little brothers are always in, and news of a Hikoi (march) from Northland to NZ Parliament in Wellington in protest to the continuing loss of Maori lands.

The cost of living is another interesting part of Dawn Raid, as now Sofia is earning her own money on a milk run, she struggles over what to buy, layby purchases and the cost of things she’d like. Milk is 8 cents a bottle – scandalous after a 100% price hike from 4 cents a bottle. Minimum wage is under two dollars, and for more money you can take empty bottles to the dairy and cash them in.

So many parts of Sofia’s life matched mine in the 70’s but I was completely unaware of the Dawn Raids. Racism and Prejudice are interesting threads to follow in class discussions as well as the spin and bias power the media has when presenting to the public.

Dawn Raid received the Best First Book Award in the NZ Children’s and Young Adults Book Awards in 2018, and also received a Storylines Notable Book Award. Wish I read this sooner.

Author – Pauline Vaeluaga Smith

Age – 10+

Listen to an excerpt here

Meet Pauline here telling you more about her award winning book

Learn more about the Dawn Raids here

Learn more about the Hikoi here

Teacher’s Notes here – Scholastic NZ

(2021 Levine Querido, 2018 Scholastic NZ, New Zealanders, Historical, History, Islanders, Kiwis, Racism, Muldoon Government, Human Rights, Prejudice, Media Bias, NZ Police, David Lange, Polynesian Panthers, Family, Overstayers, Read aloud, Class sets, 1970’s, NZ Culture, School, Racism)