The Whale Rider

Published for the first time on the Penguin Classics U.S. list, the bestselling modern classic Māori coming-of-age novel that inspired a multiple-award-winning film starring Academy Award-nominated actress Keisha Castle-Hughes

A Penguin Classic

Eight-year-old Kahu craves her great-grandfather's love and attention. But he is focused on his duties as chief of a Māori tribe in Whangara, on the east coast of New Zealand--a tribe that claims descent from the legendary "whale rider." In every generation since the whale rider, a male has inherited the title of chief. But now there is no male heir--there's only Kahu. She should be the next in line for the title, but her great-grandfather is blinded by tradition and sees no use for a girl. Kahu will not be ignored. And in her struggle, she has a unique ally: the whale rider himself, from whom she has inherited the ability to communicate with whales. Once that sacred gift is revealed, Kahu may be able to reestablish her people's ancestral connections, earn her great-grandfather's attention, and lead her tribe to a bold new future.

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Witi Ihimaera is one of New Zealand's most prolific and accomplished writers. Witi's first novel, Tangi, won the Wattie Book of the Year Award in 1974, a feat he repeated with The Matriarch in 1986. His celebrated novel Bulibasha: King of the Gypsies, now adapted as the film Mahana, won the Montana Book Award in 1995. Witi's other novels and short story collections include The Whale Rider (also adapted as an internationally successful film), Dream Swimmer (sequel to the award-winning The Matriarch), Pounamu Pounamu, and Nights in the Gardens of Spain. In 2015 he published the first volume of his autobiography, Māori Boy. Lily Gladstone (foreword) made history by becoming the first Indigenous person to win a Golden Globe for best actress and the first Native American performer to be nominated for best actress, at the 2024 Academy Awards for Killers of the Flower Moon. Shilo Kino (introduction) is an Indigenous author from Aotearoa (New Zealand). She is a descendant of the tribes Ngāpuhi and Ngāti Maniapoto. Her debut novel, The Porangi Boy, won the Young Adult Fiction Award at the New Zealand Book Awards for Children & Young Adults in 2021. Her second novel, All That We Know, was published by Mao Press in 2024. As a journalist, she has written for The Guardian (New Zealand) and multiple other media outlets in New Zealand, exploring themes of social justice, identity, and belonging.