Award success a posthumous birthday gift
Harriet ‘ Hat’ Rowland would have turned 21 today – and having her book recognised alongside Joy Cowley’s and Sir Lloyd Geering’s might have been a pretty nice birthday present.
The young Paremata woman was diagnosed with a bone cancer called osteosarcoma at age 17, but before she died she polished off The Book Of Hat. It started as a blog about her experience and became a book about her determination to live life to the full.
She lived long enough to see her book launched at Park Road Post Production in March, but died soon after.
The book came runner-up in the Ashton Wylie Charitable Trust Book Awards, an award themed around Mind Body Spirit, with the other finalists in the top three being renowned children’s book author Joy Cowley and theologist Sir Lloyd Geering.
Rowland’s grandmother Jo Kelly, who accepted the award on behalf of the family in Auckland recently, said Harriet would likely have been surprised but happy about the recognition.
Rowland’s voice was strong in the book, and her maturity and understanding for others might have been what stood it apart, Kelly said.
‘‘She was really amazingly positive and accepting and wrote about the good things in her life – that she was extremely lucky, that she’d had a good life, got to do lots of things that some people never get to do.’’
Rowland’s main concern had been for the people she was leaving behind, Kelly said, and she was always checking in to make sure others were coping.
‘‘She made sure it didn’t become the elephant in the room you didn’t talk about.’’
Despite the cancer returning at the beginning of last year, Harriet lived in Boulcott Hall and studied at Victoria University until she became too unwell to continue.
‘‘Her determination to do things that were positive in her life was pretty amazing. At no time did she say ‘poor me, why me’, she just got on with life,’’ Kelly said.
She said the book ‘‘makes you laugh and makes you cry’’, and could give inspiration for other young people whether they have experience of cancer or not.
‘‘It’s left a lot of hope and inspiration for people, and it’s wonderful for us as a family having it and to be able to read it and laugh and cry with her again,’’ she said.
Rowland attended Paremata Primary School before going to Queen Margaret College.
More: thebookofhat.com.