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

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 Artist Solomon Enos

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

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

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