I’ve missed you, my read­ing and writ­ing friends! It’s been a lit­tle while since my last blog post, but that’s because I’ve been work­ing on a cou­ple of man­u­scripts. As Stephen King once said, When you’re writ­ing, the book is boss. No kid­ding. My debut pic­ture book, Kaho’olawe: The True Sto­ry of An Island and Her Peo­ple (illus­trat­ed by Hari­nani Orme) is sched­uled for Spring 2025. And look what I found in Publisher’s Week­ly Spring 2025 Children’s Sneak Peak issue! 

Author Valerie Bollingʻs pic­ture books are always great choic­es for kids. Her col­or­ful, lyri­cal ear­ly read­ers and pic­ture books focus on the joys and tri­umphs of child­hood. Her first non-fic­tion pic­ture book is a col­lec­tion of bio­graph­i­cal sketch­es, I See Col­or: An Affir­ma­tion and Cel­e­bra­tion of Our Diverse World. The col­lec­tion’s short yet engag­ing for­mat makes it the per­fect intro­duc­tion of short biogra­phies to chil­dren. I am delight­ed that our own Native Hawai­ian activist and schol­ar, the late Dr. Hau­nani-Kay Trask is one of the book’s fea­tured unsung heroes. 

You know me. I lOVE books, art, and films that focus on the Native Hawai­ian com­mu­ni­ty and our Pacif­ic Island cousins. I love them so much that my blog focus­es on inter­view­ing these amaz­ing cre­ators. As native peo­ples, our voic­es have tra­di­tion­al­ly been under­rep­re­sent­ed. Thank­ful­ly, this is chang­ing, with books by Native Hawaiian/Polynesian authors includ­ing Gab­by Ahuli’i, Tam­my Paikai, Malia Mau­nakea, Shar Tuiʻa­soa, and Brook Park­er enter­ing the mar­ket. Kaylin Melia Georgeʻs Alo­ha Every­thing is a beau­ti­ful, sweep­ing intro­duc­tion to Hawai­ian cul­ture and his­to­ry, espe­cial­ly help­ful for those unfa­mil­iar with the Native Hawai­ian people.