Tangaroa’s Gift is a picture book written by Mere Whaanga-Schollum, a Maori scholar and author of children books. The story tells about Paua, an ugly sad sea creature and how it gets its beautiful shell. This book is selected for the prominent Russell Clark Medal in 1991 and for the AIM Picture Book Award in 1991. The book was first published in 1990.

This book is a children fantasy book about a small sea creature called Paua, which has no shell. It was very sad and depressed by its structure. One day the God of sea, Tangaroa noticed the difficulties of Paua. The sea god consoled it and says that he will gift a special covering on its back. The creature is very happy by hearing the words.

Tangaroa takes the deepest blue color of the ocean and from Tane, god of forest he takes the light green color, from the dawn he takes the purple color and at last from the sun he takes the pink color. He decorates the Paua with all these colors. The coat looks shiny and dazzling and all creatures are jealous of its new appearance. But the coat is brittle and is broken into pieces by sea creatures. Tangaroa noticed this and put more layers to strengthen the coat. Finally he added a camouflage coat on it to protect Paua from the sea animals. He paint the gray color to hide Paua from the large sea creatures. Tangaroa put many layers on Paua with different layers and made the shell thicker. So that is the story how Paua got its hard shell.

The story of little creature Paua is example to everyone who is miserable and thinks he cannot do anything in life. The teacher’s should explain to the child the life of Paua through this story. The story book is suitable for children in nursery and kindergartens. It is a favorite bed time story for little kids.