Paea Spies

This is a great little bilingual book to introduce the colours in Samoan. Paea and her friends are at the playground. As Paea spies around the playground each item is illustrated in her magnifying glass.

To help the reader out the Samoan text is written in the colour for example lanu moana and lanu hinehina for blue and white. The sentences are simply and repetitive making this a great story for younger children.

The other half of the book is written completely in Samoan making it a useful addition to the classroom or school library.

The centre of the book contains a two-page spread of other books in the My Pasifika Series and another two-page spread with a glossary of the colours and a pronunciation guide.

This book would also be useful for Samoan speakers for whom English is a second language.

The illustrations are bright and colourful and include traditional Samoan patterns. The detail would support oral language development as the reader is prompted to look for what else they can spy on the last page. Children could also be encouraged to guess what each item is as the item is on the next page from the magnified image.