This well-designed picture book is set in a small North Queensland town in the 1950s. A young girl named Faith needs a costume for the annual school’s fancy dress carnival. Her family can’t afford to buy one but using imagination and ingenuity her family and neighbours rally around to make her a costume.
Using flowers from the old, twisted frangipani tree in the backyard, her sisters thread the blossoms to make a lei and a crown and give her some bangles. An aunt gives her an old sheet to wear as a sarong and an uncle lends her a ukulele that doesn’t have any strings. A neighbour brings a squashed red lipstick and a stump of black eye-pencil, and she is transformed into an island princess.
Faith suffers a slight confidence crisis when she arrives at the carnival and sees some of the other costumes, but her cousin Noelie, who has drawn on his cultural roots and dressed as an Aboriginal warrior, tells her she looks just like an island princess. The story ends with everyone reflecting on what made Faith’s costume so successful.
The story is based on the memory of this event as it happened to the author’s mother. There is a strong sense of oral history being handed down in the way the author refers to family members in relation to herself – so, for example, Faith is Mum. It is a delightful story for early to middle readers about courage, community, and creativity. It also explores the themes of overcoming social expectations and is reminiscent of traditional storytelling. It reads aloud well and there is a balanced placement of text and illustrations on each double page. The frangipani flower is a constant visual theme which is scattered throughout the illustrations as well as on the cover and end papers and this works to draw the reader into the story.
Trina Saffioti is a descendant of the Gugu Yulagi people of North Queensland. ‘The Old Frangipani Tree at Flying Fish Point’ is a true story. Illustrator Maggie Prewett is descended from the Ngarluma people of the Pilbara region of Western Australia. She is an established artist and has illustrated several children’s books.
Aboriginal and or Torres Strait Islander Resource
