Title: What’s in a Name?
He aha tō te Ingoa?
Author: Renisa Viraj Maki
Illustrator: Isobel Te Aho-White
Māori translation by Hona Black
ISBN: 978-1-99-004263-8
RRP: $22.99
Specs:  PB, 270 x 210 mm portrait, 32 pp, colour
Publishing: 5 November 2024

‘I’m worried about saying the names correctly,’ Priyanka says when she gets tasked with reading out student names at the end-of-year school assembly.

Determined to say them correctly, she goes on a chase to find her classmates and learn how to pronounce their names. She meets Arihia, Xinze, Somachandra, Sean and Tausa’afia, learns about their names and practises hard for the big day.

Renisa Maki tells a gentle and heart-warming story that crosses cultures and highlights the mana our names carry. Superbly illustrated by Isobel Te AhoWhite and translated into te reo Māori by Hona Black, What’s in a Name? is a book to read and reread at home or school.