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Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author
Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author
Kamalani Hurley Native Hawaiian author

Native Hawaiians

Book Review: Hiʻiaka and Panaʻewa, a Graphic Novel by Gabrielle Ahuliʻi

by
Hiʻiaka-and-Panaewa

Hiʻiaka-and-Panaewa

When I was a kid, I had a set of books called Great Illus­trat­ed Clas­sics. They were fat vol­umes full of sto­ries embell­ished with black and white draw­ings. The scari­est tales were from Greek and Roman mythol­o­gy where the hero bat­tled bad guys and won (most of the time.) 

Even in school, the myths we read were lim­it­ed to Greek and Roman gods with names like Zeus, Athena, Posei­don and Mars.

But where were the col­or­ful pic­ture books about Pele, Maui, Kaʻahu­pa­hau, Kama­puaʻa, the mene­hune? There weren’t any, not in the kidlit sec­tion of the library or in any of the illus­trat­ed clas­sics that lined my child­hood bookshelf.

The mes­sage native kids like me got loud and clear was that those Greeks and Romans were the clas­sic heroes, the only heroes worth learn­ing about.

Thank­ful­ly, times are chang­ing. More Native Hawai­ian authors and artists are revis­it­ing and retelling our tra­di­tion­al sto­ries for today’s young audiences.

The lat­est is a graph­ic nov­el, Hiʻi­a­ka and Panaʻe­wa, by Native Hawai­ian author Gabrielle Ahuliʻi. Intend­ed for the pic­ture book crowd, ages 4 – 8, and their grown-ups, this book is the per­fect intro­duc­tion to Hawai­ian myths for the youngest readers.

The sto­ry, as described in the sum­ma­ry, is: 

Hiʻi­a­ka wants to make the forests of Hawaiʻi safe for peo­ple. But sheʻll have to bat­tle an evil lizard named Panaʻe­wa and his army to do it. With a lit­tle help from her sis­ter, her friend, and some spe­cial pow­ers, sheʻs ready for a great battle.”

This is a sto­ry of friend­ship and sis­ter­hood. Faced with the task of keep­ing the for­est safe for the peo­ple, Hiʻi­a­ka, accom­pa­nied by her friend Wahineʻō­maʻo, must decide how to chal­lenge the fear­some guardian mo’o, Panaʻewa.

In one of my favorite scenes, Hiʻi­a­ka seeks strength by look­ing up at the stars and remem­ber­ing the courage it took for her ances­tors to brave the vast Pacif­ic Ocean to set­tle in Hawaiʻi. This sim­ple pan­el con­veys such emo­tion in a deeply Hawai­ian way.

The small cast of char­ac­ters are total­ly like­able. They expe­ri­ence some fears and doubts, but ulti­mate­ly they find strength from with­in and from each oth­er. The bat­tle with Panaʻe­wa is scary, but the scene is not too intense for young readers.

As expect­ed in a children’s sto­ry, the heroes pre­vail, and the end is hope­ful. The last pan­el neat­ly ties up the sto­ry by reflect­ing the very first pan­el of the island below and the man­uokū fly­ing above.

I appre­ci­ate that the sto­ry is pre­sent­ed as a short (32 page) graph­ic nov­el. The for­mat with its thought­ful word choice and poet­ic devices is per­fect for its intend­ed audi­ence of begin­ning read­ers but also as a read aloud.

The illus­tra­tions are inten­tion­al­ly sparse. Kids can eas­i­ly get over­whelmed in tra­di­tion­al com­ic book style, but in this book, fran­tic, over­drawn pan­els are avoid­ed. Instead, the col­or­ful, pic­ture book-like illus­tra­tions con­vey both sto­ry and emo­tion appro­pri­ate for the intend­ed age group.

More than any­thing, I love the author’s authen­tic voice. Every­thing, from imagery – espe­cial­ly Pele’s skirt and lei, the voy­ag­ing canoe, the man­uokū seabird, the moʻo – to the select­ed words in ʻōle­lo Hawaiʻi feels pono. For tra­di­tion­al­ists in my com­mu­ni­ty, this sto­ry of Pele and Hiʻi­a­ka is respectful.

The bookʻs back mat­ter con­sists of help­ful resources, includ­ing writ­ing prompts, dis­cus­sion ques­tions, and a short glossary.

In her author’s note, Ahuliʻi writes, “I hope our ances­tors look on my telling with pride.”

I am sure they are.

Hiʻi­a­ka and Panae­wa, A Hawai­ian Graph­ic Leg­end
Writ­ten by Gabrielle Ahuliʻi. Illus­trat­ed by Sarah Demon­teverde
Pub­lished by Pic­ture Win­dow Books, 2023
ISBN: 9781484672907
Sug­gest­ed for ages 4 – 8

Learn about the author in our talk sto­ry inter­view with Gabrielle Ahuliʻi. To look up the def­i­n­i­tions of the Hawai­ian terms used in this post, please vis­it Nā Puke Wehewe­he.

Dis­claimer.

Interview with Native Hawaiian Author Gabrielle Ahuliʻi

by
Gabby-Ahulii

Gabby-AhuliiLike most Native Hawai­ians, author Gabrielle Ahuliʻi grew up hear­ing the beloved leg­ends passed down from gen­er­a­tion to generation. 

Best known for her pop­u­lar series, Hawai­ian Leg­ends for Lit­tle Ones, and now for her first graph­ic nov­el, Hi’i­a­ka and Panae­wa, Gabrielle beau­ti­ful­ly retells these clas­sic sto­ries for today’s young read­ers and their grown-ups. 

Why is it so impor­tant for chil­dren to know the myths and leg­ends of their ances­tors? Gabrielle explains in an inter­view at Bright­ly:

Expo­sure to sto­ries and leg­ends of cul­tur­al sig­nif­i­cance in ear­ly child­hood can give chil­dren a deep sense of respect for the place they live and an oppor­tu­ni­ty to engage with the cul­ture around them. Access to and engage­ment with Native Hawai­ian sto­ries empow­ers chil­dren of Native Hawai­ian descent by arm­ing them with knowl­edge to help nav­i­gate their world as Indige­nous peo­ple…If a child under­stands the world around them from a cul­tur­al per­spec­tive, they are not only able to engage more deeply with their cul­ture, but to cre­ate more mean­ing­ful con­nec­tion across cul­tures as well.

We total­ly agree.

Alo­ha e Gabrielle. For those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

My name is Gabrielle Ahuliʻi Fer­reira Holt, and I was born and raised on Oʻahu. I live in the ahupuaʻa of Maki­ki, which is also the ahupuaʻa of the school I work at. I am the school librar­i­an at Hana­hauʻoli School, a 105 year old pro­gres­sive ele­men­tary school.

Where did you grow up? What high school did you grad from?

I grew up in Hon­olu­lu, and I was for­tu­nate to attend both Hana­hauʻoli School and Puna­hou School. Hana­hauʻoli gave me the gift of crit­i­cal think­ing, a love of learn­ing, and cre­ative prob­lem solv­ing, while Puna­hou school widened my hori­zons and gave me the gift of learn­ing ʻōle­lo Hawaiʻi for four years.

Go Buff n’ Blue! Who is your biggest supporter?

I live an incred­i­bly priv­i­leged life in that I have no lack of sup­port­ers. I have count­less peo­ple in my life who step up, both phys­i­cal­ly and men­tal­ly, and are con­stant­ly and con­sis­tent­ly on my team. I want to rec­og­nize my fam­i­ly, my part­ner, my men­tor, my edi­tor at Beach­house, my friends and col­leagues at Hana­hauʻoli, and the lāhui for always giv­ing me every­thing I need.

Why did you become a writer? What inspired you to write for children?

I didn’t ever see myself as a writer; as a kid, I was an incred­i­bly lazy writer. I didn’t Maui-slows-the-suncon­nect to writ­ing in the way that I deeply con­nect­ed to read­ing. I became friends with some­one who pub­lish­es books for chil­dren in Hawaiʻi while I was in the Library Sci­ences pro­gram at UH. At the time, I was focused on Hawai­ian / Pacif­ic Librar­i­an­ship, and when she heard about my pas­sion, she approached me with a writ­ing project. She and I worked so well togeth­er that we pub­lished six adap­ta­tions of moʻole­lo togeth­er. She allowed me to see myself as a writer.

What do you enjoy most about writ­ing for kids? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges in writ­ing for children?

Since I am a school librar­i­an, I get to work­shop ideas and rough drafts with my stu­dents. Their feed­back is invalu­able. I hear their voic­es in my head when I am craft­ing a sto­ry. I love that I get to essen­tial­ly col­lab­o­rate with my stu­dents. Some of them are such pow­er­ful, descrip­tive writ­ers that tru­ly inspire me.

After their Hawaiʻi Island trip, one child wrote about the “braid­ed lava.” Anoth­er child wrote the phrase “Pele runs her hand along cre­ation,” and I was just blown away. Just being around their sin­cere, cre­ative ener­gy makes me a bet­ter per­son and a bet­ter writer.

My biggest chal­lenge is keep­ing sto­ries sim­ple. Too often, peo­ple feel that chil­dren need bells and whis­tles in a sto­ry to keep them engaged. Noth­ing is fur­ther from the truth! The most endur­ing, mean­ing­ful nar­ra­tives for chil­dren are often the most sim­ple but pro­found. If you have some­thing to say, say it truth­ful­ly, mean­ing­ful­ly, and in the lan­guage of the world you have built.

Hiʻiaka-and-PanaewaCon­grat­u­la­tions on your new graph­ic nov­el, Hiʻi­a­ka and Panae­wa! Can you share a bit about the book? With­out giv­ing too much away, what is it about?

This book is a re-telling of Hiʻi­a­ka and her first major encounter with one of the moʻo of Hawaiʻi – Panaʻe­wa. My re-telling sim­pli­fies her jour­ney a lot. Itʻs for younger read­ers and for those who may not have a lot of con­text for who Hiʻi­a­ka is, so she sets of on this adven­ture with a slight­ly dif­fer­ent goal than what is dis­cussed in the orig­i­nal ʻoli.

What inspired you to choose that top­ic for your first graph­ic novel?

When I was approached to write this, I sug­gest­ed three Hawai­ian moʻole­lo (hop­ing that this one was the one the pub­lish­ers would con­nect to). I want­ed to write a moʻole­lo with a female pro­tag­o­nist, and I want­ed to bring more of Hiʻi­akaʻs sto­ry to younger readers.

What was your favorite part of writ­ing your graph­ic nov­el? What was most challenging?

I love read­ing and doing research, so I real­ly like that part of the process. I want to make sure that my adap­ta­tions are faith­ful, while also being able to give them my own voice and per­spec­tive. I was­nʻt used to cre­at­ing books in a graph­ic nov­el for­mat, so the biggest chal­lenge was think­ing about what I want­ed each pan­el to look like – not that I nec­es­sar­i­ly told the illus­tra­tor exact­ly what to draw, but I need­ed to think about what my words need­ed to say and where the images could help sup­port the rest of the story.

What was the jour­ney to get­ting that book pub­lished like?

Cap­stone approached me to write an entry in their ongo­ing Dis­cov­er Graph­ics series in Decem­ber of 2021 and I spent 2022 work­ing on the man­u­script. It was pub­lished in Decem­ber of 2022. They found me because of my first series of Hawai­ian Leg­end adap­ta­tions, which has indeed opened many doors for me.

What char­ac­ter­is­tics do you love best about the protagonist(s)?

I love Hiʻi­a­ka as a char­ac­ter because although she is pow­er­ful, she is also fal­li­ble and real­is­tic. I love how coura­geous she is, but also how cocky she can be. I did­nʻt get to include this in my re-telling, but there is a point in her sto­ry when she is par­tic­i­pat­ing in a surf con­test, and she says, “Aia a ʻane e uhi ke kai i ke kua o ke kuahi­wi o kea, a laila, kū koʻu nalu – When the sea ris­es and cov­ers Mau­na Kea, then that is my wave.” So brave, and so bold! I just love her so much and want more of her epic avail­able for chil­dren to enjoy.

Pele-Finds-A-HoneYou are also the author of a suc­cess­ful series of board books. What inspired you to write about folk tales for your first books?

I think there is a true need for moʻole­lo to be acces­si­ble for young read­ers – we have a few very, very good adap­ta­tions, but I want chil­dren to have as many antholo­gies and books about Hawai­ian gods and god­dess­es as there are about the Greek ones. I want more Native Hawai­ian voic­es rep­re­sent­ed as the tellers of these moʻole­lo, and I want a wide vari­ety of moʻole­lo told.

What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your writ­ing career and what you would like to see pub­lished in the future?

I would love to con­tin­ue to per­pet­u­ate the cul­ture of lit­er­a­cy that Kana­ka have built. It is a priv­i­lege to get to be some­one who can write these moʻole­lo down for pos­ter­i­ty, so I hope and dream that I con­tin­ue to do it and do it in a way where I make my com­mu­ni­ty and lāhui proud to read them.

My next goal or wish is to cre­ate an anthol­o­gy of Hawai­ian moʻole­lo for mid­dle grades — 3rd to 6th. There is a real need there. The antholo­gies that do exist are good resources for adults. I want old­er ele­men­tary age chil­dren to be excit­ed about the Hawai­ian pan­theon of Gods and God­dess­es in the same way many are obsessed with Greek or Norse mythology.

There are not a lot of sto­ries for kids by Native Hawai­ian, Pacif­ic Islander or BIPOC writ­ers. Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do the change that?

I do feel we are see­ing a par­a­digm shift in pub­lish­ing cul­ture. Many are being more crit­i­cal of the books that take up space in the canon of chil­drenʻs lit­er­a­ture and giv­ing it a sec­ond glance. I feel that it is more diverse than when I was devel­op­ing my read­ing skills, certainly.

Hiʻiaka-Battles-The-WindHow­ev­er, it real­ly does boil down to: You canʻt be what you canʻt see. The only books that I read as a child with a Hawai­ian char­ac­ter in it were either so wild­ly mis­rep­re­sent­ed as to verge on offen­sive, or writ­ten by a non-Hawai­ian per­son. I think that in order to fix this, we have to empow­er our­selves to take charge, shed our imposter syn­dromes and say, “I can do this, I can tell this sto­ry.” In that way, we can invest in a future where chil­dren have seen them­selves rep­re­sent­ed in their lit­er­a­ture and are encour­aged to not only seek out more, but add on to what has been created.

Which of your books did you have the most fun writ­ing? Which were the most challenging?

All were such inter­est­ing chal­lenges that it’s hard to rank them. I loved doing the research piece for all the board books — even though the adap­ta­tions are quite short, I want­ed to do the tra­di­tion of moʻole­lo ser­vice and tried to find and read as many ver­sions as I could. I loved writ­ing all of them!

What beliefs are your books challenging?

Maui-Hooks_the_islandsI want to chal­lenge the belief that Hawaiʻi is just this sta­t­ic place that vis­i­tors sim­ply “expe­ri­ence”. I want peo­ple to under­stand that every piece of Hawaiʻi is a moʻole­lo in itself; that every per­son (vis­i­tor, set­tler or ʻōi­wi) here has a respon­si­bil­i­ty to take care of Hawaiʻi and acknowl­edge those moʻolelo.

Can you share a bit about your next book?

I’ve just fin­ished an ʻŌle­lo Hawaiʻi trans­la­tions of my first six board books with Beach­house. David Del Roc­co helped me immense­ly with the trans­la­tion process (I need­ed some lan­guage sup­port — some of my gram­mar was a lit­tle rusty!) I am beyond excit­ed for those re-pub­li­ca­tions to come out. I would love to read them aloud ma ka ʻōle­lo Hawaiʻi some­day soon to a group of children!

What advice would you give an aspir­ing writer?

NaupakaWrite what you know and in your own voice, writ­ing is not a solo process, the project is nev­er tru­ly fin­ished, treat your char­ac­ters with empa­thy and as if they are sit­ting in the room with you.

What kinds of books do you enjoy read­ing? Any favorites?

I love read­ing and my super­pow­er is that I am an extreme­ly fast read­er, so I am able to read a lot in a short amount of time. I love authors like Ali Smith who play with the con­ven­tions of what a nov­el is and have such a spe­cif­ic voice. I love all gen­res – although  I donʻt nec­es­sar­i­ly grav­i­tate towards romance or thrillers (except a book called Razor­blade Tears that I thought was stupendous).

Hereʻs a list of authors and/or books that I love:

  • Ali Smith (Sea­son­al Quar­tet, The Acci­den­tal, How to be Both)
  • Rachel Cusk (Out­line trilogy)
  • Her­nan Diaz (Trust)
  • Elif Batu­man (The Idiot)
  • Otes­sa Mosh­fegh (My Year of Rest & Relax­ation, Lapvona)
  • Berna­dine Evaris­to (Girl, Woman, Oth­er)
  • Emma Cline (The Girls, Dad­dy, The Guest)
  • Jes­myn Ward (Sal­vage the Bones, Sing, Unburied, Sing)
  • Made­line Miller (Song of Achilles, Circe)
  • Robert Jones Jr. (The Prophets)
  • Miri­am Toews (A Com­pli­cat­ed Kind­ness, Women Talk­ing)
  • Tom­my Orange (There, There)
  • Yoko Ogawa (The Mem­o­ry Police)

More authors: Mohsin Hamed, Helen Oye­mi, Andrea Levy, Bryan Wash­ing­ton, Michael Ondaat­je, Lisa tad­deo, Juhea Kim, Chanelle Benz, Lau­ren Groff, Zadie Smith, Luis Alber­to Urrea, Bran­don Hobson)

I have so many!

Can you share a bit of your cur­rent work?

I just went to Hawaiʻi Island with some stu­dents and was isnpired by Waiānu­enue / Rain­bow Falls and the moʻole­lo of Kuna the moʻo. I start­ed draft­ing a sto­ry to tell my stu­dents the sec­ond night we were there, so this is a work in progress:

The moʻo took silent steps toward her. The moʻo was cov­ered in a sick­ly translu­cent set of scales, as if the rays of the sun could not reach him. His eyes were a deep mot­tled grey. Hina thought of the lava fields south of Hilo, the smooth lava that in some light looked like bod­ies strewn across a plain. His eyes gave her that same unset­tled but awe-struck feeling.

The moʻoʻs tongue slicked out to wet one of those grey eyes. “Hina of Hilo — you meet my eyes as if we are equals. But you do have man­ners, so I will not strike you down here. I have long tired of you and your kind com­ing to this island, assum­ing that you can shape the earth around you with no consequence.”

Hina opened her mouth to argue but remained silent. Some­times silence was better.

The moʻo con­tin­ued. “Your son, the famous Māui, has a hook. He will bring me this hook that he has used to reshape the heav­ens itself, or you will die here, in this pool. This pool is cold and the cur­rent is strong, and the sea of this coast is vio­lent and unforgiving.”

Hina thought. Why should Māui bring this mon­ster his hook?

The moʻo smiled sly­ly. “Why should your son bring me this hook, you may be think­ing. Sim­ply: he does not deserve this extra­or­di­nary tool. This hook belongs to the old Gods, those that were born from the deep roil­ing depths and grew along­side the ferns and fish and birds.”

“The gods them­selves gave that hook to my son, and he has only used it to serve oth­ers. As I have taught him.” Hina stood up straighter.

“Who does he serve when he cracks the sea floor to pull islands to the sur­face? Who does he serve when he bends even the sun to his self­ish will?” The moʻo spoke calm­ly, but Hina could sense the fury puls­ing through the mon­sterʻs veins. His tail tapped slow­ly on the wet cave floor.

“He serves his fam­i­ly and his peo­ple. As is cor­rect,” Hina respond­ed sim­ply. “The respon­si­bil­i­ty of gods and their fam­i­ly is to help and pro­tect the humans who live with us.”

The kids must’ve loved this! Do you have a web­site? Are you on social media? Do your read­ers con­tact you? What do they say?

My web­site is gabrielleahulii.com. I donʻt real­ly have social media in a pro­fes­sion­al “writer” capac­i­ty. Most peo­ple con­tact me through my web­site. I get mes­sages about how they dis­cov­ered my books or I get images of chil­dren read­ing them. I love that a lot. I also get to meet peo­ple when I do read­ings, which is always so fantastic!

It was won­der­ful meet­ing you, Gabrielle. Maha­lo nui for shar­ing your man­aʻo, and best wish­es always for your con­tin­ued success!

To read more about Gabrielle, includ­ing her work on lit­er­a­cy in Hawaiʻi, vis­it her web­site, GabriellaAhulii.com. Pho­to cour­tesy of author.

 

How I Learned to Write Using Mentor Texts: Unspeakable, by Carole Boston Weatherford

by
Books-unsplash
Books-unsplash
Pho­to by Fal­lon Michael on Unsplash

Wel­come to a new occa­sion­al series about learn­ing from men­tor text pic­ture books!

I love pic­ture books, those wild­ly col­or­ful, won­der­ful­ly imag­i­na­tive works of chil­dren’s lit­er­a­ture. Some pic­ture books are so good that every time I read  one, I always come away with some­thing new — a fact I did­n’t know, an excit­ing idea I had­n’t thought of, a point of view I had­n’t con­sid­ered — in a small, easy-to-read, beau­ti­ful­ly illus­trat­ed pack­age. As a writer, I use men­tor texts to improve my sto­ry­telling skills. 

What are men­tor texts?

These are well-writ­ten books we can use as mod­els to become bet­ter read­ers and writ­ers. Men­tor texts allow us to exper­i­ment, to take risks, and to test new ideas and points of view.

Patrice-GopoThere is an army of us authors (and teach­ers, par­ents and grand­par­ents, librar­i­ans, and stu­dents) devot­ed to and inspired by pic­ture books. Just lis­ten to the pop­u­lar pod­cast Pic­ture Books are for Grown-ups, Too led by my friend, the won­der­ful Patrice Gopo. Her guests are writ­ers who dis­cuss men­tor texts, fic­tion and non-fic­tion, of all kinds.

Like these writ­ers, I also study men­tor texts to learn the tricks and tips to improve my own writ­ing. I focus on HOW a sto­ry is told, includ­ing plot devices, page turns, and lyri­cal language. 

But what if I can’t find men­tor texts about the top­ics I want to write about?

That’s the chal­lenge I face. I write about my Native Hawai­ian com­mu­ni­ty’s dif­fi­cult his­to­ry, and men­tor texts on our gen­er­a­tional trau­ma writ­ten by ‘ō’i­wi authors are pret­ty much non-existent. 

If, like me, find­ing men­tor texts for your dif­fi­cult top­ics is a strug­gle, it may help to real­ize that our com­mu­ni­ties are not the only ones that face his­tor­i­cal chal­lenges. Pic­ture books by suc­cess­ful kidlit authors such as Car­ole Boston Weath­er­ford, Traci Sor­rell, Rob Sanders, Sun Yung Shin, and oth­ers can inspire and instruct us. 

That’s what this series is about — the search for men­tor texts that demon­strate ways in which dif­fi­cult / sen­si­tive top­ics can be han­dled with care yet hon­est­ly for young read­ers, and thus inspire us to write our own stories. 

Which men­tor text inspired me to write my own pic­ture book stories?

Unspeakable coverFor me, the influ­en­tial pic­ture book that helped me to write my first two non-fic­tion man­u­scripts is UNSPEAKABLE, THE TULSA RACE MASSACRE by Car­ole Boston Weath­er­ford (Lern­er, 2021.) In fact, I love this book so much that I chose it to speak about when I was a guest on Patrice’s pod­cast.

The book makes this dif­fi­cult his­to­ry sto­ry acces­si­ble to kids. Ms. Weath­er­ford does this in delib­er­ate, inge­nious ways:

  • employ­ing the famil­iar refrain, “Once upon a time,” to gen­tly ori­ent read­ers to the city and the res­i­dents’ accomplishments, 
  • mak­ing use of mea­sured yet musi­cal lan­guage, such as inter­nal rhyme and alliteration,
  • incor­po­rat­ing the every­day activ­i­ties of res­i­dents with the names of actu­al busi­ness­es, such as the soda foun­tain at Williams Con­fec­tionery, mak­ing the sto­ry more relat­able to today’s young readers,
  • pre­sent­ing the incit­ing inci­dent with the words, “All it took,” a dev­as­tat­ing moment in the book,
  • choos­ing words that demon­strate the vio­lence of the mob, result­ing in a clear-eyed telling that nev­er con­de­scends or insults the read­er’s intelligence,
  • end­ing with a call to action and a scene of hope. 

Because I’m such a fan-girl, I con­tact­ed Ms. Weath­er­ford through her web­site to thank her for her incred­i­ble book. Her response was a gra­cious email encour­ag­ing me to stick with it:

Thanks so much for reach­ing out. I love Hawaii but hate what was done to the indige­nous peo­ple. Please doc­u­ment that history.

Absolute­ly!

My-guest-podcastWhat are your men­tor texts? Are you work­ing on dif­fi­cult, chal­leng­ing top­ics? Which pic­ture books inspire you? Email me kamalani3@gmail.com and let’s talk books! 

 

 

 

Interview with Native Hawaiian Artist Solomon Enos

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Solomon-Enos

Native Hawai­ian artist Solomon Enos is a mod­ern-day Renais­sance man: a sought-after artist, book Solomon-Enosillus­tra­tor, mural­ist, sculp­tor, and game design­er. His beau­ti­ful pieces have been exhib­it­ed at mul­ti­ple pub­lic venues, includ­ing the Hon­olu­lu Muse­um of Art, the Hawai’i State Art Muse­um, and the pres­ti­gious Smith­son­ian Muse­um Asian Pacif­ic Amer­i­can Cen­ter. Google, Pixar, and Dis­ney’s Aulani Resort are among his famous clients. 

His web­site describes the artist this way:

A self-described “Pos­si­bilist” Solomon’s art express­es an informed aspi­ra­tional vision of the world at its best via con­tem­po­rary and tra­di­tion­al art that leans towards Sci-Fi and Fan­ta­sy. His work touch­es on themes like col­lec­tive-con­scious­ness, ances­try and iden­ti­ty, our rela­tion­ship with our plan­et, and all through the lens of his expe­ri­ence as a per­son indige­nous to Hawaiʻi.

Yet for all his many accom­plish­ments and con­tri­bu­tions to the com­mu­ni­ty, he is a hum­ble man of few words. We are hon­ored to fea­ture the artist, Solomon Enos.

Alo­ha e Solomon. For those who haven’t met you yet, can you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

FamilyI am a native Hawai­ian artist with an inter­est in visu­al­ly trans­lat­ing aspects of Hawai­ian cul­ture into new media and genres. 

Where did you grow up? What high school did you grad from?

I grew up in Māka­ha [island of Oʻahu] and went to Waiʻanae High School.

Go Searid­ers! Who are your biggest supporters?

My fam­i­ly and asso­ciates who share a sense of kuleana to our cul­tur­al values.

Why did you come an illustrator/artist? Did you always  know you could cre­ate art? 

From a very young age, as my fam­i­ly gave me all the encour­age­ment I need­ed. 

What do you enjoy most about cre­at­ing art? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges? 

The very mys­tery of cre­ation, and find­ing enough time to work in bal­ance with my oth­er responsibilities.

Liliʻu-Kalākaua-MuralWhere do you get your inspirations?

From a mul­ti­tude of var­ied sources and quite a bit of inter­nal explorations.

Illus­tra­tors and artists, like writ­ers, do a lot of research when theyʻre cre­at­ing. Whatʻs your research process like? 

This is prob­a­bly the most chal­leng­ing ques­tion, as I am con­stant­ly work­ing and cre­at­ing, so I do not sep­a­rate my process from my dai­ly life. To sum it up, I have an unstop­pable belief that I can achieve any vision I set out to cre­ate, pro­vid­ing I man­age my time, as I have mul­ti­ple visions in progress.

What beliefs are your work challenging?

The nature of war as inevitable, and the wor­ship of wealth with­out responsibility.

Gatherer-black-and-whiteThere are not a lot of Native Hawai­ian, Pacif­ic Islander or peo­ple of col­or illus­tra­tors.  Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do to change that? 

I am very much com­mit­ted to inspir­ing oth­er natives, by exam­ple of my work eth­ic, and my aspi­ra­tion to gain con­sen­sus as I move to excellence.

What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your artis­tic career?

I am blessed to be work­ing on a range of major com­mis­sions simul­ta­ne­ous­ly, and I hope to get back to my own projects with all this gained experience.

Art-AttackCan we see a bit of your cur­rent work?

Sure, @solomonenos on Insta­gram is the most cur­rent and eas­i­est way to access my work.

What advice would you give an aspir­ing artist? 

Make sacred work spaces, where you have all your tools and good light­ing. Know that what­ev­er you are cur­rent­ly work­ing on, it is the most impor­tant thing you can be doing with the time you have to give. Be fear­less and take risks with paper and can­vas, and no time used cre­at­ing is ever wasted.

What’s your online pres­ence like? Do your fol­low­ers con­tact you? What do they say? 

Solomonenos.com, and I am most active­ly on Insta­gram @solomonenos. I absolute­ly encour­age engage­ment and con­ver­sa­tions, and I have been blessed with many peo­ple express­ing their appre­ci­a­tion and who have found inspi­ra­tion in my work. Those are tru­ly the price­less ways that I thrive and can give back. 

Maha­lo, Solomon, for shar­ing your man­a’o with us today, and best wish­es always for your con­tin­ued success!

To learn more about Solomon Enos, includ­ing his online port­fo­lio of murals and exhi­bi­tions, vis­it his web­site, SolomonEnos.com. Pho­to and images cour­tesy of Solomon Enos

 

Book Review: Lei and the Fire Goddess, by Malia Maunakea

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Lei-and-the-Fire-Goddess

Lei-and-the-Fire-Goddess

Lei and the Fire God­dess by Malia Mau­nakea is a rare gem in kid lit: an epic com­ing-of-age sto­ry writ­ten by a Native Hawai­ian author fea­tur­ing Native Hawai­ian characters.

The sto­ry intro­duces us to twelve year old Lei, with all the joy and snark­i­ness and inse­cu­ri­ty that are part of grow­ing up. It didn’t take long for me to get into the sto­ry. From the very moment she steps off that air­plane at Hilo air­port, Lei is a ful­ly devel­oped, ful­ly like­able character.

So are the sec­ondary char­ac­ters, espe­cial­ly Tūtū, ʻIlikea, Moʻo, Kama­puaʻa, and the for­mi­da­ble Pele. I won’t spoil it for you by reveal­ing too much. Just know that the char­ac­ters of Hawai­ian leg­ends come alive in the author’s vivid sto­ry­telling and are inte­gral to Lei’s grow­ing aware­ness and maturity.

There is so much I love about this book.

I loved Lei’s char­ac­ter arc, watch­ing her grow, fac­ing her fears, devis­ing solu­tions, and fac­ing the con­se­quences. The excit­ing major scenes — between Lei and Kama­puaʻa, between Pele and Poliʻahu, the holua sled race — grab the read­er and donʻt let go.

But even the qui­et moments, such as Lei vow­ing not to share the water­fall on social media and lat­er real­iz­ing why tele­scopes donʻt belong on Mau­nakea, speak vol­umes,  espe­cial­ly to ʻōi­wi readers.

I love how the lan­guage is geared to today’s audi­ence with­out being dis­mis­sive of the mem­o­ries and upbring­ing of the old­er read­ers the sto­ry might appeal to. The ʻōle­lo Hawaiʻi is not a trope but a real sto­ry­telling device. For exam­ple, Tūtūʻs “close the mouth” line in an ear­ly scene is such a Hawai­ian way of teach­ing and learning.

I loved what felt like inside jokes but are real­ly evi­dence of the author’s authen­tic voice: KTA, the tin roof, Iz’s song, li hing mui snacks, pid­gin. I love that the first hula that comes to Lei’s mind is the one we all learn as kids, Kahuli Aku. And I laughed out loud at the chap­ter titled “Ma-ke Die Dead.”

Now the ele­phant in the room. At first I was super ner­vous about Pele being a main char­ac­ter. Our kūpuna teach us to respect and revere her. There will always be tra­di­tion­al­ists who feel the Pele sto­ry should nev­er be retold in a mod­ern voice.

Yet, for me, more than any­thing, I love how cre­ative the sto­ry is. It’s respect­ful and authen­tic and adds to the Pele and Kama­puaʻa canon for today’s kids. Pele tru­ly sounds like the god­dess I grew up hear­ing about. That she becomes Lei’s fren­e­my is edgy and feels right. 

Kids’ books by lived experience/own voic­es authors are so impor­tant. I am Native Hawai­ian and grew up in the 1960s. There were no books – not one! – where the char­ac­ters looked like me, did the things I did as a kid, ate the foods I ate, or used the pid­gin I spoke. All kids deserve to see them­selves in chil­dren’s lit.

This is why books like Lei and the Fire God­dess are so impor­tant. It’s a beau­ti­ful­ly writ­ten, rol­lick­ing excit­ing-scary-fun­ny sto­ry that kids every­where will love. For all these rea­sons, LEI is a must-read.

Lei and the Fire God­dess  
By Malia Mau­nakea   
Pen­guin Ran­dom House
2023
ISBN 9780593522035
Sug­gest­ed for ages 8 – 12

Maha­lo to Sier­ra Pregosin at Pen­guin Ran­dom House for access to the galley! 

Learn about author Malia Mau­nakea in our talk-sto­ry inter­view. To look up the def­i­n­i­tions of the Hawai­ian terms used in this post, please vis­it Wehewehe.org

 

Interview with Native Hawaiian Author Malia Maunakea

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Malia-Maunakea-Kahiki-Photography

Malia-Maunakea-Kahiki-PhotographyMalia Maunkea is Native Hawai­ian author of mid­dle grade and non-fic­tion. Her new nov­el, LEI AND THE FIRE GODDESS, a rol­lick­ing sto­ry about an adven­tur­ous Native Hawai­ian twelve-year-old, is a rar­i­ty in chil­drenʻs lit­er­a­ture: a sto­ry for mid­dle grade kids writ­ten by an ʻōi­wi author that fea­tures an ʻōi­wi char­ac­ter. We are proud to fea­ture Malia in todayʻs talk-story.

Hoʻo­maikaʻiʻana on your new nov­el! For those who haven’t met you yet, please tell us a lit­tle about yourself.

Sure! My name’s Malia, named for the Olo­mana song O Malia since my par­ents’ first date was to an Olo­mana con­cert. My mom is from upstate New York and is pure Pol­ish. My dad is from Māʻili (West Side) on Oʻahu. I’ve been mar­ried to my awe­some part­ner for near­ly two decades, and we have two kids who are teens at the time of this inter­view. I love hik­ing and back­pack­ing and trav­el­ing around the con­ti­nent in our tiny campervan.

Where did you grow up? What high school did you grad from?

I grew up on Hawaiʻi Island ’til 7th grade and Oʻahu thru high school. I got accept­ed into Kame­hame­ha Schools in 7th grade. I was a board­er for one year, then my fam­i­ly moved over to Oʻahu and, much to my dis­may, I had to move back in with them. I grad­u­at­ed from Kame­hame­ha Schools in 1999. My dad is class of ʻ72. My great-grand­pa is class of ʻ17.

I mua! Go War­riors! Can you share a bit of your upcom­ing debut nov­el, LEI AND THE FIRE GODDESS? With­out giv­ing too much away, what is it about? 

Lei-and-the-Fire-GoddessLEI is about a girl who is raised in Col­orado but goes to stay with her tūtū in Vol­cano, Hawaiʻi every sum­mer for three weeks. She’s part Hawai­ian but doesn’t feel like she’s Hawai­ian enough to fit in there, and she also strug­gles fit­ting in back home in Col­orado where no one believes the things her grand­ma tells her.

This sum­mer she decides she doesn’t believe them either, and all she wants to do is go do touristy things so she can have fun sto­ries to tell her friends when she gets home. Unfor­tu­nate­ly, Lei ends up insult­ing Pele, the fire god­dess, who sends her giant hawk to kid­nap her best friend. When Lei goes to res­cue him, she real­izes just how real Tūtū’s moʻole­lo are as she teams up with demigods and talk­ing bats to bat­tle myth­i­cal crea­tures and evade the traps Pele hurls her way. For if Lei hopes to get her friend back, she has to dig deep into her Hawai­ian roots and embrace all of who she is.

That’s an excit­ing idea! What inspired you to choose that top­ic for your debut novel? 

My son was big into Greek mythol­o­gy for a while, and I tried explain­ing to him that we Hawai­ians have our own amaz­ing gods and leg­ends, but he sor­ta brushed me off. I decid­ed the only way I could get him to lis­ten was maybe if I put it in a book that could be on a shelf that his class­mates might pick up and read, like a Per­cy Jack­son type sto­ry. So I came up with this sto­ry to try share a lot of the myths and moʻole­lo I learned grow­ing up in Hawaii with a new gen­er­a­tion of read­ers who may or may not be famil­iar with our stories.

What was your favorite part of writ­ing your nov­el? What was most challenging? 

My favorite part was going back through my mem­o­ries and pic­tures from liv­ing in Vol­cano and vis­it­ing Hawaiʻi Vol­ca­noes Nation­al Park and remem­ber­ing all the icon­ic art and songs that I was able to thread through­out the sto­ry. The most chal­leng­ing was bring­ing it up to speed. Things have changed since I moved from the island, and I want­ed to make sure I was still on point with var­i­ous land­marks and understandings.

What char­ac­ter­is­tics do you love best about your pro­tag­o­nist, Anna Leilani Kamaʻe­hu? Is she mod­eled after some­one specific? 

I love that she’s sort of a jump-right-in-and-fig­ure-it-out-as-we-go kind of a per­son. I pulled a lot of my own strug­gles of not feel­ing Hawai­ian enough and dif­fi­cul­ties mak­ing and keep­ing friends as mate­r­i­al for Anna.

What was the jour­ney to get­ting your nov­el pub­lished like? How long did it take to write your book?

I draft­ed this book from April to August of 2020 then spent two years in revi­sions. My jour­ney was super fast com­pared to some folks, and not as fast as others.

In the fall of 2020 I applied for a num­ber of men­tor­ships and end­ed up being select­ed for both We Need Diverse Books (WNDB) and my region­al Soci­ety of Children’s Book Writ­ers and Illus­tra­tors (SCBWI) pro­grams. I worked inten­sive­ly with Alan Gratz and Andrea Wang to rewrite, revise, and improve my sto­ry from Jan­u­ary to May of 2021, then sub­mit­ted it to #APIP­it (a pitch event on Twit­ter) in May of 2021. I received inter­est from a num­ber of agents, so I sent out my queries and inter­viewed dif­fer­ent agents, select­ed an agent, did more revi­sions, sent the book out on sub­mis­sion to pub­lish­ers in June, end­ed up hav­ing mul­ti­ple pub­lish­ing hous­es inter­est­ed and went to auc­tion in August.

We sold in Sep­tem­ber 2021 in a two book deal and start­ed work­ing with my fab­u­lous edi­tor Eliz­a­beth Lee at Pen­guin Work­shop (an imprint of Pen­guin Ran­dom House). So since then it has been many more rounds of revi­sions, and now work­ing on book two!

Why did you become author? Have you always want­ed to be an author? 

I loved writ­ing when I was young but was advised by teach­ers that it wasn’t nec­es­sar­i­ly my strong suit and that I was bet­ter at the maths and sci­ences. I also loved read­ing but abhorred book reports and most of the required read­ing from my class­es. It wasn’t until I was an adult with a cou­ple of careers under my belt when I popped my head up from the grind and won­dered if it was pos­si­ble for me to try writ­ing again.

We are so glad you did. What do you enjoy most about writ­ing, espe­cial­ly for kids? What are some of your great­est challenges? 

I love writ­ing excit­ing, fast-paced action scenes—showing kids how clever and strong and brave they can be. My great­est chal­lenge is to get the char­ac­ters to have an arc, to have them change over the course of the sto­ry. A men­tor told me once that peo­ple don’t fall in love with plot; they fall in love with char­ac­ters. The char­ac­ter needs to be three dimen­sion­al and flawed, so read­ers can root for them and under­stand why they’re going through what they’re going through. That is chal­leng­ing for me as I usu­al­ly come up with fun cir­cum­stances that I want to have hap­pen to my char­ac­ter, but they usu­al­ly don’t tie in to a theme or deep­er mean­ing (which prob­a­bly ties into why I strug­gled with Lan­guage Arts and book reports in school.)

You also wrote anoth­er book, BACKPACKING WITH CHILDREN book, which is on a very dif­fer­ent top­ic. What made you decide to write this book?

Backpacking-with-ChildrenI actu­al­ly start­ed that one before LEI AND THE FIRE GODDESS. A friend of mine pub­lished a book for begin­ner back­pack­ers, and I thought that if he could do it, I could do it. They say to “write what you know,” so I wrote about my expe­ri­ences back­pack­ing with our kids over the past ten years and 600+ miles. While that book was on sub­mis­sion, I had a lot of time to wait, and so I decid­ed to write the next thing, and the next thing, and then anoth­er thing. And that last thing end­ed up becom­ing LEI!

What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your pub­lish­ing career and what you would like to see pub­lished in the future? 

I have so many ideas and not enough time! I’m work­ing on revis­ing the sequel for LEI right now and work­ing on a young adult con­tem­po­rary nov­el that I describe as Pride and Prej­u­dice meets WILD. I’d love to do well enough that I’m able to get back to Hawaiʻi and spend time with kei­ki in the schools there.

Hopes and dreams? How big you want to know? Heck, if we go big time, I’d love for some­one like Dwayne John­son or Jason Momoa or Barack Oba­ma to pick it up (they all have daugh­ters and prob­a­bly oth­er kids that they could gift it to after they’re pau read­ing) and talk about it so that it gets on the radar of Tai­ka Wait­i­ti and scooped up into a movie. Then some mys­te­ri­ous bene­fac­tor who is look­ing to give back to kāna­ka in Hawaiʻi offers to give a copy to every kid in Hawaiʻi (so many times grow­ing up I nev­er had mon­ey to get a book at those book fairs) and rents out the movie the­aters so all the kids and their fam­i­lies can go see it for free. 

Clear­ly I’m not real­is­tic when it comes down to the fact that this is a busi­ness since I want to just give it all away. I’d absolute­ly love to have a long, steady career in writ­ing, but even if LEI is the only fic­tion book I ever sell, it’ll have been an incred­i­ble expe­ri­ence.

I love your big dreams, Malia. What beliefs are your work challenging?

I’m not sure if this is chal­leng­ing beliefs, nec­es­sar­i­ly, but I’m try­ing to do a cou­ple things with this story:

  1. Help kids who might not feel like they are rep­re­sen­ta­tive of their own cul­tures or eth­nic­i­ties under­stand that they are enough and
  2. Help increase aware­ness of some of the issues Hawai­ians are fac­ing in an age appro­pri­ate way that doesn’t feel over­ly teachy/preachy— men­tion­ing the day the Hawai­ian flag was tak­en down from ‘Iolani Palace, by men­tion­ing the tele­scopes on Mau­nakea and pro­tec­tion efforts there, hav­ing Anna face dis­crim­i­na­tion by a local girl when she doesn’t pick the right sticky rice at the gro­cery store.

Do you have any expe­ri­ences as a Native Hawai­ian writer that you might share with our read­ers? What would you like to see change in the indus­try regard­ing the accep­tance of BIPOC creators? 

Our voic­es are so impor­tant! The way we view the world, inter­act with nature and our fam­i­lies, process trau­ma, and per­haps come from a more col­lec­tivist cul­ture (pri­or­i­tiz­ing the group above the indi­vid­ual) are all so dif­fer­ent than expe­ri­ences tra­di­tion­al­ly por­trayed in stories.

Some of us don’t fol­low tra­di­tion­al west­ern sto­ry­telling pat­terns, and that’s okay! I’m real­ly excit­ed about some new up and com­ing Kana­ka authors, like Makana Yamamoto’s Ham­ma­jang Luck and Megan Kakimoto’s Every Drop Is A Man’s Night­mare and your own Kahoʻo­lawe! All of our sto­ries are impor­tant, and it’s nec­es­sary for a pletho­ra of us to have our voic­es out there so none of us is bur­dened with rep­re­sent­ing the entire lāhui, the entire Native Hawai­ian pop­u­la­tion. We are each so unique with­in our shared expe­ri­ences, it is crit­i­cal that read­ers are able to see Hawai­ians as indi­vid­ual fla­vors, not just all coconut all the time.

What advice would you give an aspir­ing writer? 

Find oth­er writ­ers to learn with, prac­tice with, and com­mis­er­ate with! If you love it, it isn’t a waste of time. If your strengths lie else­where, you can do both! Keep this as a hob­by as you explore oth­er things as well.

Is there a fun fact youʻd like to share about your­self with young readers? 

Hmm, one of my ear­lobes is attached, and the oth­er isn’t. Oh, and I have a preau­ric­u­lar pit on one ear. And I get ran­dom songs stuck in my head a lot of times and end up mak­ing epic mash ups of songs but can nev­er remem­ber any of them. Oth­er­wise, I’d have been an awe­some DJ.

What kinds of books do you enjoy read­ing? Any favorites? 

As a kid I loved Garfield and The Far Side (I prob­a­bly would have devoured graph­ic nov­els if they’d been around!). Then I got into creepi­er things, RL Stine to Christo­pher Pike to Stephen King (it was quite the jump, but there weren’t many young adult options that I knew of way back in the 1900s). Now I love read­ing fun­ny, action-packed mid­dle grade sto­ries and young adult or adult rom-coms with strong female leads and lots of wit­ty ban­ter. I go through them too quick­ly to remem­ber a favorite!

Do you have an online pres­ence? Do your read­ers con­tact you? What do they say? 

My web­site is MaliaMaunakea.com, and on social media I’m on Twit­ter, Insta­gram, and Face­book. My book was­n’t out then, but I did some vir­tu­al class­room vis­its in Feb­ru­ary and read a cou­ple chap­ters of my book to kids, and a num­ber of the class­es sent me thank you notes. Oh, my good­ness, my heart was not pre­pared for the sweet­ness and love­li­ness of their expres­sions. They are why writ­ing for kids is the best thing ever. 

It was so much fun talk­ing sto­ry with you, Malia! Maha­lo nui loa for shar­ing your man­a’o with us! E pili mau nā pōmaikaʻi me ʻoe (best wishes!)

To read more about Malia, includ­ing her cool list of fun facts, vis­it her web­site, MaliaMaunakea.com. Pho­to cred­it: Kahi­ki Photography

 

My Debut Picture Book is Announced at Publisherʻs Weekly!

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PW announcement

Maha­lo ke Akua! After a long career teach­ing writ­ing (which I real­ly loved), I thrilled beyond words that my debut pic­ture book, KAHOʻOLAWE, has been offi­cial­ly announced at Pub­lish­erʻs Week­ly!

 

Kahoʻolawe is a sto­ry of loss and era­sure, of sac­ri­fice and ded­i­ca­tion, and, ulti­mate­ly, of restora­tion and resilience. Writ­ten and illus­trat­ed by Native Hawai­ians Kamalani Hur­ley and Hari­nani Orme, this chil­drenʻs pic­ture book is the sto­ry of alo­ha ʻāi­na — a deep love of the land — and explores what hap­pened to Kahoʻo­lawe and how she is a bea­con of hope for the Native Hawai­ian peo­ple and for peo­ple every­where who fight against social and envi­ron­men­tal injustice. 

Maha­lo nui …

  • to the lead­ers of the Pro­tect Kaho’o­lawe ‘Ohana for their exper­tise and sup­port of this project. Their ded­i­ca­tion to Kahoʻo­lawe and to the Hawai­ian peo­ple con­tin­ues to inspire. 
  • to edi­tor and pub­lish­er, Car­ol Hinz, whose exper­tise and patience we are count­ing on to get the book into the world.
  • to my agent James McGowan, who always knew this sto­ry need­ed to be told.

 

image cred­it: Vic­ki Palmquist — Wind­ing Oak

Interview with Author Vera Arita

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Vera-Arita

Hawaiʻi-based author Vera Ari­ta has spent her life help­ing spe­cial-needs chil­dren to suc­ceed. Her chil­drenʻs books focus on Hawaiʻi themes and encour­age chil­dren to  delight in the world around them. 

Vera-AritaMaha­lo, Vera, for allow­ing me to fea­ture you on my blog. For those who haven’t met you, could you please tell us a lit­tle about yourself?

Alo­ha all! I’m Vera Ari­ta, and I am a retired spe­cial edu­ca­tion teacher.  I taught for 32 years, and then I retired from Mililani Ike Ele­men­tary in Cen­tral Oʻahu in 2016. I am cur­rent­ly a half time field ser­vice instruc­tor at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Hawaiʻi at Manoa, and I help stu­dents learn how to be spe­cial edu­ca­tion teach­ers. I live in Mililani with my hus­band, Neal, and we have two sons/two daugh­ters-in-laws, two grand­sons and a granddaughter. 

Where did you grow up? What high school did you grad from?

I grew up in Waipahu and went to Waipahu Ele­men­tary, Inter­me­di­ate and High School.

Go, Maraud­ers! Who is your biggest supporter?

For sure my hus­band, Neal, our sons and extend­ed fam­i­ly! I also have great teacher and church friends who come out full force to sup­port my book signings.

Why did you become a writer? What inspired you to write for children?

All-Around-The-IslandsIn my teach­ing career, I always had a dream to write children’s books to share the love, care and life lessons I’d grown to appre­ci­ate. I believe the inspi­ra­tion also comes through my faith in Christ. My first book, All Around the Islands, came out in 2005.  I ded­i­cat­ed my first book to my par­ents, Bolo and Eileen Sone­da, because my dad was very ill, and Iʻd promised him that I would write a book someday. 

What do you enjoy most about writ­ing for kids? What are some of your great­est chal­lenges in writ­ing for children?

Alphabet-HukilauI think hav­ing kids learn about ani­mals or the sounds of the let­ters in rhyme is very reward­ing. My fourth book, Alpha­bet Huk­i­lau, was writ­ten on an iPad! I was just kick­ing around with the idea of a net catch­ing let­ters instead of sea ani­mals. At the back of the book there is non-fic­tion infor­ma­tion of the sea ani­mals since much of our con­tent stan­dards deals with read­ing non-fic­tion books. 

The chal­lenge for any author is find­ing a pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny who is will­ing to risk cre­at­ing a book with your words. 

What are your hopes and dreams for the year and beyond in terms of your writ­ing career and what you would like to see pub­lished in the future?

Teach­ing chil­dren has been, and is, my pas­sion, and cur­rent­ly my pub­lish­er is con­sid­er­ing a count­ing book that is quite whimsical.

There are not a lot of sto­ries for or by Native Hawai­ians and Pacif­ic Islanders. Why do you think that is? What do you think we can do the change that?

Again, you have to find a pub­lish­ing com­pa­ny who believes in your writ­ing.  I believe that in Hawaii, most pub­lish­ers have to cater to the tourist mar­ket for their books to sell. I’m hop­ing that my new book, which pro­motes char­ac­ter edu­ca­tion, will be in all schools in Hawaii and nationwide.

Do you have a web­site? Are you on social media? Do you do school visits?

I do not cur­rent­ly have a web­site, but I am on Insta­gram Vera­sonedaari­ta or you can email me. I do school vis­its where I share the writ­ing process and share sketch­es of how a book is formed.  I often browse through reviews on Ama­zon of my books and find it very hum­bling to get such rave reviews.

What advice do you have for aspir­ing writers?

Nev­er give up on your dreams. You have to reach out to many pub­lish­ers and not get dis­cour­aged. My pub­lish­er told me she receives sub­mis­sions near­ly every day, and few are picked up to be published.

Can you share a bit of your cur­rent work?

Alo­hasaurus is a sto­ry that I think many peo­ple can real­ly relate to.  It’s about a dinosaur who has no friends because he looks dif­fer­ent, and he sounds dif­fer­ent.  In Alohasaurusmany ways it’s like my broth­er, Mike, who, was socially“different.”  Mike was born with men­tal and phys­i­cal chal­lenges.  Sad­ly, Mike recent­ly passed away in ear­ly Sep­tem­ber 2022, so he did not get a chance to see the book.

In the sto­ry, a group of curi­ous and coura­geous chil­dren befriend the dinosaur, and in turn, he teach­es them ways to be kind and how to mod­el alo­ha. Through their new­ly found friend­ship, they name him “Alo­hasaurus.”

As a sub­sti­tute teacher, I’ve been test mar­ket­ing the draft of the book with stu­dents, and it has got­ten “5 star” reviews from them! I have even shared the book with some mid­dle school stu­dents, and they real­ly liked the sto­ry. Their encour­age­ment has been uplift­ing and so precious.

Which of your books did you have the most fun writ­ing? Which was the most challenging?

Animals-Sing-AlohaMy third book, Ani­mals Sing Alo­ha. It is a phon­ics book that teach­es how to write and sound out the alpha­bets cor­rect­ly. It was a sur­prise because the draft was lit­er­al­ly writ­ten on the back of an anniver­sary card while I was in a Maui hotel lob­by on vaca­tion. I tell stu­dents that when inspi­ra­tion hits, you have to be ready to write!  That book has been my best-sell­ing book to date.

Most chal­leng­ing is Alo­hasaurus because it’s been on the back burn­er since 2007!  I wrote the draft on the back of ser­mon notes in church and always felt that this would be a great book; how­ev­er, the pub­lish­er wise­ly was wait­ing for the right time to cre­ate it — and now is the time!

What beliefs are your books challenging?

They chal­lenge peo­ples’ beliefs that you have to look and act like every­one else to be suc­cess­ful. The les­son to the read­ers is that you can be a suc­cess if you are kind to oth­ers, speak respect­ful­ly, work hard and are a team player.

What’s your expe­ri­ence with pub­lish­ing your books?

I learned that when you sign a con­tract, all your future man­u­scripts go to them first and if they reject it, then you are free to go to anoth­er pub­lish­er. Also, the pub­lish­er can edit your writ­ing if they feel it flows bet­ter a dif­fer­ent way. There needs to be trust that the pub­lish­er knows what it takes for a suc­cess­ful book; how­ev­er, there may be times when you must per­se­vere and not give up on a reject­ed book.

Where do you get ideas for your books?

Can-You-Catch-A_Coqui-FrogIt seems that dif­fi­cult fam­i­ly times pro­vid­ed inspi­ra­tion for me to write. In 2006 my broth­er, Mike, had a seizure and hit his head very hard and became brain-dam­aged.  While he was in an extend­ed coma, I promised to write anoth­er book and ded­i­cate it to him. Thus, Can you Catch a Coqui Frog was written. 

Authors write to per­suade, inform or enter­tain.  My books fall between inform­ing and enter­tain­ing. As a teacher I couldn’t find a book that men­tioned all eight Hawai­ian Islands, so that’s how All Around the Islands came about.  Alo­hasaurus men­tions dif­fer­ent kinds of car­ing for peo­ple and for our ʻāina.

Which char­ac­ters do you relate with eas­i­ly? Why?

In fic­tion­al sto­ries, I relate to the char­ac­ter who real­ly aren’t out­stand­ing, but through much deter­mi­na­tion and hard work, they are able to achieve a lot.  One of my favorite bible vers­es is Philip­pi­ans 4:13: I can do all things through Christ Jesus. A good exam­ple of this is that I recent­ly decid­ed to enter the Hon­olu­lu Marathon with three months left to train. I did it 10 years ago but trained for a year back then. With the Lord’s help, I can do it again.

Maha­lo nui, Vera! To con­tact Vera Ari­ta and learn more about her books, please fol­low her Vera­sonedaari­ta in Instagram.

March On, a Short Film by Courtney Takabayashi

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March On

Come along with Joe and Mara as they hunt for the night marchers in March On, the hilar­i­ous­ly spooky video by my friend, the writer and sto­ry­teller Court­ney Tak­abayashi. Be sure to watch through the cred­its for the lov­able eccen­tric, Uncle Kimo. Court­neyʻs video is a past win­ner of the Hal­loween Video Con­test spon­sored by the Hon­olu­lu Star-Adver­tis­er and Hawaii News Now.

The work­ing mom of a tod­dler and a cou­ple of fun-lov­ing cats, Court­ney admits that her web­site is a bit out of date, so to con­tact her, fol­low her on Insta­gram. 

Post­ed with per­mis­sion by Court­ney Takabayashi. 

Moke Action, by Award-Winning Native Hawaiian Filmmaker ʻĀina Paikai

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pupu-a-o-ewa-logoHawaiʻi Cre­ole Eng­lish — called “pid­gin” by its native speak­ers — dates back 100 years to the sug­ar plan­ta­tion days. Immi­grant work­ers, first from Chi­na, then Japan and oth­er coun­tries, need­ed a way to com­mu­ni­cate with their fel­low work­ers and with the peo­ple who lived among them, the Native Hawai­ians. Pid­gin is still spo­ken in Hawaiʻi, and being flu­ent is a source of great pride by its speak­ers. Pid­gin is what makes us local.

One of the most pop­u­lar videos we pub­lished at Pūpū was this lit­tle gem, Moke Action, an ear­ly film direct­ed by the tal­ent­ed Native Hawai­ian film­mak­er ʻĀi­na Paikai. Not sur­pris­ing­ly, ʻĀi­na would go on to make many award-win­ning short films, includ­ing the won­der­ful Hawai­ian Soul in 2020. Moke Action, star­ring Bru­tus LaBenz, Brah­ma Fur­ta­do, and Liona Arru­da, is the tale of two young men who near­ly get into an unfor­tu­nate scuf­fle. Hap­pi­ly, they are pre­vent­ed from com­mit­ting vio­lence, thanks to their respect for their elder. Or, in pidgin:

Two guys like scrap til aun­ty wen scold dem.

Exact­ly.

Post­ed with per­mis­sion by ʻĀi­na Paikai.