Lynley Hood,
Sylvia! The Biography of Sylvia Ashton-Warner
Penguin Group (NZ),
1988, 2008
Sylvia Ashton-Warner was one of the great educational innovators of the twentieth century.Working predominantly with Maori children in small New Zealand country schools, she unlocked a storehouse of imagery native to each child. Through the use of the 'key vocabulary' her pupils learned that language could reflect their own creative energies, and be a mirror for life itself.
But Sylvia was also an artist, from her earliest years tortured by self-doubt and driven by passions the full extent of which are revealed in this book for the first time. Wife, mother, teacher, writer - she lived behind a mask that she dared not put down.
In this magnificent biography Lynley Hood traces the life and work of the contradictory and romantic Sylvia Ashton-Warner.
Sylvia! is currently in print and in bookshops.