Sione Tapani Mangisi

Slates and Ghosts. Makatohi mo e T?volo Sione Tapani Mangisi

This book shares some of the author's memories about going to primary school in Kolovai, Tongatapu, from 1955 to 1959. This was a time when children were still taught using slates and chalk. The stories centre around the importance of friendship to him and his classmates. He shares the fun of Fridays when they were assigned garden duties and how they helped each other out when it came to teacher inspections. Then there are his battles with teachers who tried to make him write with his right hand not his left and punished him when he refused. And he recounts what happened when he ran away from school one night only to be faced with the danger of attack by the ghosts that lived in the village graveyard. Interwoven to the stories are his memories of village life at a time when there were very few trucks or cars and everyone was very poor.




This is the second book in the Manatu Melie series that began with Marbles and Mangoes. It too is a dual language book, in English and Tongan, and is intended to be read aloud and shared with family members.