Hap­py Book Birthday!

You are cor­dial­ly invit­ed to the offi­cial book launch of Kaho’o­lawe: The True Sto­ry of an Island and Her Peo­ple at Native Books (1164 Nuʻuanu Avenue, Chi­na­town His­toric Arts Dis­trict) on Sat­ur­day, Feb­ru­ary 8, 2025, from 11 am — 1 pm. Hari­nani Orme, the book’s won­der­ful illus­tra­tor, and I plan to share about the book’s jour­ney to pub­li­ca­tion in a relaxed, talk sto­ry-type format.Maile Mey­er and the good folks Native Books have gra­cious­ly offered to donate a por­tion of the pro­ceeds of books sold dur­ing the event to the Pro­tect Kahoʻo­lawe ʻOhana. Maha­lo nui!

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 left 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 todayʻs read­er will find the sto­ry acces­si­ble because of its fresh, mod­ern take on tra­di­tion­al legends.