Matilda survives the war through the guidance of her devoted but strict Christian mother and her white teacher Mr Watts, and also, more importantly, through her connection with the fictional Pip, the protagonist of Charles Dickens' Great Expectations.

Pip helps Matilda maintain a desire to live, especially after her mother, Mr Watts, and her island home all cease to exist.

She does everything in her power to ensure that her daughter's mind is not polluted by the strange white man, including making weekly visits to the classroom.

She even goes as far as stealing and hiding Watts's Great Expectations book, an action that causes immense trouble when "Redskin" soldiers enter the village and find Pip's name carved in the sand.

It is Matilda who wrote his name, and it is her guilt that makes her empathise with her mother, who refuses to give up the book as evidence that Pip is not a rebel but a fictional character.

She comes to terms with the reality of Watts, who altered both the facts of his life and abridged the contents in Great Expectations in an effort to provide escape from the world, both for himself and for the children.

She reveals her success in becoming a scholar and a Dickens expert and concludes her narrative by emphasizing the power of literature to offer escape and solace in the worst of times.

On July 29 and 30 2011 filming was at Glendowie College, and at a flight training centre at Albert Street, Newmarket, Auckland.