Cries from the Moana *UK Rubery Award Book of the Year 2024*

Living on a small island in the Pacific, Tahi and Mahina are regular village kids. Until the day when they are called on for a special mission to save the seabed. And then extraordinary things begin to happen. Follow the children’s magical journey across the vast Pacific Ocean, then downward to the ocean floor to find out what threatens its survival. Feel their excitement and awe as they encounter fascinating ocean creatures and habitats. Then discover why a huge, ugly machine lies abandoned on the seabed. But can anything be done to save the ocean from this terrifying intruder? ‘Atu Emberson-Bain is a Tongan-born Pacific Islander, living in Fiji. She is a graduate of Oxford and London Universities (B.A. Hons., M.A.), the Australian National University (Ph.D), and the University of the South Pacific (LL.B). With a development and human rights background, she is a former academic, documentary film-maker, parliamentarian, and regional adviser for the United Nations. Her publications include Labour and Gold in Fiji, a history of land-based mining published by Cambridge University Press, and an edited collection of Pacific Island women’s writings, Sustainable Development or Malignant Growth? This is her first venture into writing children’s fiction. Auntie Fonu is the nom de plume of Anga’aefonu Bain-Vete, a multi-disciplinary Pacific Island artist and visual storyteller whose work celebrates earth knowledge and Oneness. Her practice is guided by a desire to nurture an emotionally intelligent and kind humanity, and to honour our universal ancestral ties to the ocean and to one another. She is a graduate in fine arts from the San Francisco Art Institute, and a postgraduate in visual culture from Monash University, Melbourne.