What’s frequently missing is what problems the scientist was grappling with.

WITI IHIMAERA

Anything would be an improvement on the only three books my younger farmboy self in the 1950s grew up with. They were the Bible, of course, an encyclopaedia and a medical book that had alarming anatomical drawings and a totally inept chapter on sex. Today? Hey, I’d give that same boy a library rather than one book. It would be something he could carry on his horse while shepherding or balance while working in the cowshed, light as and it would allow him access to what Maori call Te Ao Matihiko, the digital realm. Yes, I’m talking of an iPad, the best “book” ever.

I’d give him instructions on what to seek among the treasures of the library. First, a te reo Maori course taken in a virtual classroom so that when he grows up he will have access to both Maori and English inventories of knowledge. I’d link him up with Siri so she can guide him towards the indigenous as well as European networks of mathematics, science, economics, arts and culture. I’d want him to take a course on justice systems and ethics so that he can help his generation get on equally with each other and join to save the planet.

And if he was really serious about writing, I’d suggest he go back to the source, his own myths and the myths of others. As far as non-Maori (and non-Western European) myth is concerned, my pick would have to be one of two narrative poems either The Epic of Gilgamesh or Homer’s Iliad. Gilgamesh dates from 2100 BC and is written on 12 tablets. My younger self’s generation has probably never heard of Gilgamesh, with its great story of the king of Uruk and his marvellous adventures. But it is the Father of All Epics that all others have borrowed from (think Lord of the Rings) and has such shapeshifting characters and ambivalent

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