The Kuia and The Spider
  • Published: 20 October 1982
  • ISBN: 9780140503876
  • Imprint: Picture Puffin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 32
  • RRP: $21.00

The Kuia and The Spider

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Patricia Grace and Robyn Kahukiwa's award-winning story about two old friends bickering over whose weaving is best, celebrating this traditional Maori art.

Who's the best at weaving, the kuia or the spider? They decide to ask their grandchildren . . .

Once there was a kuia who made mats and baskets.
In the corner of her kitchen lived a spider who made webs.

Since its publication in 1981, Patricia Grace and Robyn Kahukiwa's The Kuia and the Spider has become a New Zealand classic.


Also available in te reo: Te Kuia me te Pungawerewere
  • Published: 20 October 1982
  • ISBN: 9780140503876
  • Imprint: Picture Puffin
  • Format: Paperback
  • Pages: 32
  • RRP: $21.00
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About the author

Patricia Grace

Patricia Grace is one of New Zealand’s most prominent and celebrated Maori fiction authors and a figurehead of modern New Zealand literature. She garnered initial acclaim in the 1970s with her collection of short stories entitled Waiariki (1975) — the first published book by a Maori woman in New Zealand. She has published six novels and seven short story collections, as well as a number of books for children and a work of non-fiction. She won the New Zealand Book Award for Fiction for Potiki in 1987, and was longlisted for the Man Booker Prize in 2001 with Dogside Story, which also won the 2001 Kiriyama Pacific Rim Fiction Prize. Her children’s story The Kuia and the Spider won the New Zealand Picture Book of the Year in 1982.

portrait photo of Patricia Grace

Also by Patricia Grace

Bird Child and Other Stories
Cousins
Small Holes in the Silence
Ned and Katina: A True Love Story
Waiariki
Baby No-eyes
Mutuwhenua
See all

Praise for The Kuia and The Spider

The children's book The Kuia and the Spider is a Kiwi classic, as cherished as The Hungry Caterpillar and Hairy Maclary

Aroha Awarau, Stuff

An argument between a Maori grandmother and a grandfather spider about their weaving skills is unresolved even when both agree to let their grandchildren decide who is the better, for of course, the types of weaving of the protagonists are worlds apart...[the story] offers older children, and indeed adults, much food for thought.

Jill Bennett, Books for Keeps

Grace shows the reader the importance of inter-generational bonds, and the importance of elders teaching traditions to their young.

Marion McKoy, New Zealand Picture Book Collection

Awards & recognition

New Zealand Children's Picture Book of the Year Award

Winner  •  1982  •  Best Picture Book