Mophead
How Your Difference Makes a Difference
Published on 10. October 2019
Book
Hardback
88 pages
978-1-86940-898-5 (ISBN)
Description
At school, Selina is teased for her big, frizzy hair. Kids call her `mophead'. She ties her hair up this way and that way and tries to fit in. Until one day - Sam Hunt plays a role - Selina gives up the game. She decides to let her hair out, to embrace her difference, to be WILD!
Selina takes us through special moments in her extraordinary life. She becomes one of the first Pasifika women to hold a PhD. She reads for the Queen of England and Samoan royalty. She meets Barack Obama. And then she is named the New Zealand Poet Laureate. She picks up her special tokotoko, and notices something. It has wild hair coming out the end. It looks like a mop. A kid on the Waiheke ferry teases her about it. So she tells him a story . . .
This is an inspirational graphic memoir, full of wry humour, that will appeal to young readers and adults alike. Illustrated with wit and verve by the author - NZ's bestselling Poet Laureate - Mophead tells the true story of a New Zealand woman realising how her difference can make a difference.
Selina takes us through special moments in her extraordinary life. She becomes one of the first Pasifika women to hold a PhD. She reads for the Queen of England and Samoan royalty. She meets Barack Obama. And then she is named the New Zealand Poet Laureate. She picks up her special tokotoko, and notices something. It has wild hair coming out the end. It looks like a mop. A kid on the Waiheke ferry teases her about it. So she tells him a story . . .
This is an inspirational graphic memoir, full of wry humour, that will appeal to young readers and adults alike. Illustrated with wit and verve by the author - NZ's bestselling Poet Laureate - Mophead tells the true story of a New Zealand woman realising how her difference can make a difference.
Reviews / Votes
`Mophead is quirky and visually full of surprises. The story is very funny and, like all good funny stories, it has a sting in the tail. Mophead has much to say about finding that inner strength that allows you to be true to yourself.' - Gavin Bishop, ONZMMore details
Language
English
Place of publication
Auckland
New Zealand
Target group
Primary & secondary/elementary & high school
Children/juvenile
Dimensions
Height: 236 mm
Width: 187 mm
Thickness: 20 mm
Weight
492 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-86940-898-5 (9781869408985)
Copyright in bibliographic data and cover images is held by Nielsen Book Services Limited or by the publishers or by their respective licensors: all rights reserved.
Schweitzer Classification
Person
Dr Selina Tusitala Marsh is of Samoan, Tuvaluan, English, Scottish and French descent. She was the first Pacific Islander to graduate with a PhD in English from The University of Auckland and is now Associate Professor in the English Department, specialising in Pasifika literature. Her first collection, the bestselling Fast Talking PI, won the NZSA Jessie Mackay Award for Best First Book of Poetry in 2010. She has published two additional collections, Dark Sparring (2013) and Tightrope (2017). Marsh represented Tuvalu at the London Olympics Poetry Parnassus event in 2012; her work has been translated into multiple languages and has appeared in numerous forms live in schools, museums, parks, billboards, print and online literary journals. As Commonwealth Poet (2016), she composed and performed for the Queen at Westminster Abbey. She became New Zealand's Poet Laureate in 2017 and in 2019 was appointed as an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to poetry, literature and the Pacific community.