Gaynor Tinker

This book about the author's grandparents emigrating from volcanic Stromboli in Italy to farm on D'Urville Island in New Zealand is very well-written and it was easy to picture the beautiful island yet the huge struggle to make a living chiefly by farming, with some fishing, and breaking in new country to create pasture for sheep. The isolation and hardships of living on an island with the two Italian brothers and their wives having to co-manage the farm with increasing hositility between the two families was palpably sad. I was fascinated by Angelina's friendship with the Maori woman, Wetekia, in the next bay and learning Maori skills such as weaving with Harakeke. Gerard Hindmarsh has written with great insight into the Italian immigrants' experience of settling in Island Bay and other parts of New Zealand and also the way the Italians were treated during WW2 as enemy aliens and the stresses they had to endure of possible internment on Somes Island. I would recommend this book for its gripping story line but also insight into the settling of new immigrants to our country. It makes one think how can we better help them to feel at home.