New Zealand

Children's Literature - Leila Toledo

The variety of festivals that New Zealand has includes agricultural events, national holidays and art festivals. Many of the festivals feature the Maori culture, the first settlers of New Zealand. They are famous for their sheep handling. In fact, they claim to outshine their neighbors, Australia, in their sheep handling skill. During the summer, gardening is a popular hobby. Christchurch is known as the Garden City. During the height of the season, tourists are able to ride boats, much like gondoliers and view the beautiful floral displays along the Avon River. The winter presents an opportunity for a festival at Mount Cooke, New Zealand's highest point, where they have skiing, ice sculpture and a snowman building competition for children. Every even-numbered year the Maori celebrate their life and culture by tattooing their whole bodies and faces and participating in contests, dances and battle haka. Readers' activities include tattooing, learning the haka and making a pare, a long wooden carving used to decorate the entrance of Maori structures. For your enjoyment a simple step by step recipe for kiwi-mango sorbet is given. This is part of the "Festivals of the World" series.