I picked it up from a local library in the Pasifika section whilst researching and was surprised to see Johnny Frisbie as the author as I remember seeing her on 'Beauty and the Beast' a 70s -80s TV show with Selwyn Toogood as the host.
It was filmed in Christchurch it was an interesting programme in that it had mainly Pakeha women giving advice to those who had written it with their problems. Johnny Frisbie was the only Pasifika woman that I remember ever being on the show of Cook Island descent.
However, when I read the book, I was surprised to find out that she claimed it to be the first autobiography written by a Pasifika person, which I think maybe right in that she was only young when it was first published in 1946.
I would definitely recommend this book for reading as it was only republished in a couple of years ago and discusses her life growing up in the 1930s - 1940s (from diary entries) with her American father growing up in Puka Puka and her Puka Puka mom.
Her father was also a writer, known as Robert Dean Frisbie, and he'd married Ngatokura A Mataa (who died after their 5 children were born) and Johnny tells the story of their lives travelling, as her father was also a South Seas Trader and the many situations that they found themselves in travelling around the Pacific eg. to Fiji, Samoa, other atolls and later to Hawaii and USA.
She was also aware of the migration history of Pasifika peoples and the last big waka or indigenous sailing vessels that had traversed between Puka Puka and Samoa, such a gem to read from the account of one so young in the 1940s.
Highly recommended for Pasifika researchers out there from a Pasifika perspective...
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