Book Review: Lei and the Invisible Island by Malia Maunakea

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Native Hawai­ian author Malia Mau­nakea has done it again with book #2 in her Lei and the Leg­ends series for mid­dle graders. Her newest book, Lei and the Invis­i­ble Island, takes Lei and the gang on a some­times wild, some­times scary, but always fun and sat­is­fy­ing adventure.

Lei and the Invis­i­ble Island begins where Lei and the Fire God­dess leaves off. Just when it seems that Kaipo, her best friend and ʻau­makua, is safe, his pen­dant goes miss­ing. Now the race is on to save Kaipo from oblivion.

The ever-resource­ful Lei gath­ers her friends and takes the read­er on an adven­ture that is ulti­mate­ly indige­nous at its roots. Yet today’s read­er will find the sto­ry acces­si­ble because of its fresh, mod­ern take on tra­di­tion­al legends.

All of the char­ac­ters — Kaipo, ʻIlikea, Tūtū, new char­ac­ter Kaukahi — are very well devel­oped, but I espe­cial­ly love the char­ac­ter of Lei, who is total­ly lik­able as the hero the sto­ry. Lei is relat­able because she isn’t per­fect. She is a ful­ly fleshed out pro­tag­o­nist, a strong and cre­ative leader who must deal with doubts and dif­fi­cult deci­sions. It is clear that Lei has a heart and courage and is thor­ough­ly invest­ed to meet the dan­ger­ous task at hand.

I real­ly like that sto­ry appeals to young read­ers in the respect they are shown. The book deft­ly car­ries the under­ly­ing mes­sage of hope and for­give­ness that the read­er comes to nat­u­ral­ly in a fun and scary way that mid­dle grad­er read­ers love.

The authen­tic­i­ty in Malia Mau­nakea’s voice shines through. I love her local and kana­ka ʻoi­wi ref­er­ences which are woven like a lei haku through­out the book. The use of ʻōle­lo Hawaiʻi is tru­ly won­der­ful, and Tūtū’s pid­gin is spot on.

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Cov­er Illus­tra­tion @ Phung Nguyen Quang from Lei and the Invis­i­ble Island by Malia Mau­nakea (Pen­guin Work­shop, 2024)

Malia Mau­nakeaʻs web­site includes a very cool pro­nun­ci­a­tion guide (yes, that’s her voice on the audio clips) to the Hawai­ian words used in the book. 

Lei and the Invis­i­ble Island is a Native Hawai­ian sto­ry with uni­ver­sal themes all read­ers will love.  This book and book #1 Lei and the Fire God­dess are fun and excit­ing sto­ries and ter­rif­ic intro­duc­tions to the Native Hawai­ian cul­ture. They deserve space on every mid­dle grader’s bookshelf. 

You can learn more about the author in our inter­view with Malia Maunkea and our review of Lei and the Fire God­dess.

 

Lei and the Invis­i­ble Island
By Malia Mau­nakea
Pen­guin Work­shop, 2024
ISBN 978–0593522059Recommended for ages 8 — 12

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Review copy and image cour­tesy of Malia Maunakea