Book Review

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 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.

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 sim­ple 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. Fea­tured are lead­ers, many lit­tle-known to today’s kids, who have made pro­found impacts on the world. The col­lec­tion’s short, 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 fea­tured unsung heroes! Hau­nani is pre­sent­ed in a love­ly a two-page spread: a con­cise yet thought­ful pas­sage high­light­ing her key con­tri­bu­tions accom­pa­nied by a beau­ti­ful illustration. 

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, Brook Park­er, and now, Kaylin Melia George, enter­ing the market.

Alo­ha Every­thing is a beau­ti­ful, sweep­ing intro­duc­tion to Hawai­ian cul­ture and his­to­ry, espe­cial­ly help­ful for those unfa­mil­iar with the Native Hawai­ian people.

It’s a fact of the mar­ket­place that many pic­ture books with the unfor­tu­nate tim­ing of being released dur­ing the COVID pan­dem­ic were often not giv­en the atten­tion they deserved.

And that’s real­ly too bad, because they mer­it space on our bookshelves.

Punky Alo­ha, the debut pic­ture book by tal­ent­ed author/illustrator Shar Tuiʻa­soa, is one of these hid­den gems. Released in mid-2020 dur­ing the height of the pan­dem­ic, Punky is just the kind of delight­ful sto­ry kids — and their grown-ups — will love.

We meet lit­tle Punky Alo­ha with her best friend, her grand­moth­er. They love to go on all kinds of fun escapades togeth­er. Punky tell us that she was­n’t always the brave adven­tur­er she is now.

Some pic­ture books are clas­sics. They tell time­less tales that teach us about the world and our place in it.

One such clas­sic also hap­pens to be one of the first Native Hawai­ian-themed books writ­ten in an authen­tic voice. Too Many Man­goes by Tam­my Paikai is a sto­ry based on the author’s child­hood experience.

This gen­tle sto­ry is about two Hawai­ian kids, Kama and Nani, who love to climb the man­go tree at their grand­paʻs house. One day grand­pa asks them to pick some man­goes, but when he real­izes that the kids have picked way too many for their fam­i­ly to eat, he instructs them to give the man­goes away to their neighbors.