Moana (Little Golden Books)

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If we place our criticisms about the movie to one side just for a moment, this then says to me that there are two key morals that the movie helped to showcase: Since watching Moana, those questions spinning around my brain on whether it’s sympathetic to the true Pacific Island cultures (albeit complex and varying) have continued to come into focus within my mind. And just thinking of this actually, Cravalho herself declared that she‘ d been attending an all Hawaiian school at the time of filming, which had been teaching about Hawaiian myths (including that of Maui). Along the way, Maui taught Moana how to way-find which is to use the sun, the stars, the moon, and the ocean current to navigate. And when the journey became too difficult, the spirit of Gramma Tala returned. “Know who you are meant to be,” Gramma’s spirit told Moana. Also, read Ariel’s Dolphin Adventure. balance of material. Sutherland's got this proportioning thing down to a science. The balance of material established in canon in the movie to new material or *slightly* differing material in the book is perfect for keeping up reader interest while still providing a sense of familiar territory for new readers.

At the end of the day, Moana is a children’s movie (and a popular one at that). Should any of this really matter? Personally, I think a few slights are either acceptable or even necessary. I’m very sided with “reality is never an insult unless made as such in context.”To be honest, I'm not sure what, exactly, I expected the writing quality to be, but it really was stellar. The story is told in chapter form, with legends from the past intermingled between a few of the chapters. The vocabulary was higher than expected, for sure (turns out, it's a level 6.0), as I rather thought at first that it would be watered down. Boy, was I wrong. If you’ve been keeping up with the news over the past year or so, you’ll know that the internet has been awash with many different views on the concept of Moana and whether it has been authentic and sympathetic to those cultures it was hoping to promote. It’s a shame more children around the world don’t know more about other cultures. Some may never leave their hometown (even as adults). Now, this is not necessarily a bad thing as Hawaii is considered a Pacific island. I’m sure having Cravalho on board would have helped keep the team fairly true to some beliefs. Definitely for fans of Disney in general! According to H, who loaned it to me: "It's pretty much exactly the movie without the music, but with the extra stuff from the past, which really helped me understand the story better."

And if you’ve not seen this in the news, then you only need to type: “the story of Moana ”or “ Moana true story” into Google to find all kinds of debates, news stories and articles about this movie and its representations of Polynesian cultures. Wow, thanks for such a detailed comment, Gerard! Please don’t stress over how your comment has come across. I totally understand the use of caps in helping to get your point across. If you’d used !!!’s on the other hand, well then, we may very well be having a different discussion right now. (Totally kidding by the way, I actually quite like an exclamation mark)… 😉 Some are confused by this misunderstanding of their Gods and Goddesses, thus marking the Moana film as unbalanced and culturally inauthentic – something the corporation was really trying to avoid. 4. A hometown built around the idea of coconuts has not been the way to go.

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There are many islands that are considered Polynesian, including (but not limited to): Hawaii, Samoa, Fiji, Tahiti, New Zealand, Easter Island and Tonga. This means that children’s costumes associated with Maui have been thought to belittle and trivialise Polynesian beliefs and cultures because the costumes involve tattoos all over the body (as per the character in the movie). 3. Many are confused by the omittance of the Goddess Hina. material differing ever-so-slightly from the movie. Gives kids a chance to learn reading comprehension and critical analysis. They can compare what they read to what they've seen in the movie and *talk* or *write* about the little differences! It's engaging and encourages interest in ELAR!! This is so cute ahh!! I'm gonna give this book to my cousins! Can be used as a bedtime story, vocab lesson, and comprehension/cross-media analysis tool for kiddos in ELAR classes.