New Titles about Hawaii

Explore Hawaii from Aloha America to The Ukulele.

List created by the Linda Fernandes, Asian Pacific Resource Center Librarian (March 2013).

Find more reading suggestions at Books & More.

The Descendants by Kaui Hart Hemmings

A tragicomedy of emotions and situations as Matthew King, a descendant of Hawaiian royalty, finds himself with two unruly daughters while his wife lies in a vegetative coma.

Fiction

A Queen's Journey - An Unfinished Novel about Hawaii's Last Monarch by James D. Houston

A vibrant portrait of Queen Liliuokalani and Hawaii during the time when the U.S. sought annexation of the Islands.

Fiction

Dying in a Strange Land by Milton Murayama

The last of Murayama’s series about a Japanese immigrant family in Hawaii.

Fiction

The Language of Geckos and Other Stories by Gary Pak

The stories portray Hawaii in all its multiethnic complexities

Fiction

Ancestry of experience - A journey Into Hawaiian Ways of Knowing by Leilani Holmes

Adopted and raised in the Midwest, Holmes reclaims her Hawaiian origins. “A historical and ethnographic celebration of Hawaiian culture.”

Non-Fiction

Kalaupapa-A Collective Memory by Anwei Skinsnes Law

Oral history interviews, archival documents, letters, and music collected from those that were sent to Molokai because they were believed to have leprosy.

Non-Fiction

 

The Painted King - Art, Activism, and Authenticity in Hawaii by Glenn Wharton

Who or what should decide the fate of public art – the artist, the conservator or the community that interacts with it?

Non-Fiction

The Ukulele - A History by Jim Tranquada

The ukulele, a four-string folk guitar from Portugal was introduced to Hawaii in 1879.

Non-Fiction

The Queen and I - A Story of Dispossessions and Reconnections in Hawaii by Sydney Lehua Iaukea

Raised in Maui’s housing projects, Iaukea discovers she is a descendant of Curtis P. Iaukea, the trusted advisor to Queen Lili’uokalani.

Non-Fiction

Lost Kingdom - Hawaii's Last Queen the Sugar Kings, and America's First Imperial Adventure by Julia Flynn Siler

A sweeping, fast-moving narrative of America’s annexation of Hawaii.

Non-Fiction

A Shark Going Inland Is My Chief - The Island Civilization of Ancient Hawaii by Patrick Vinton Kirch

Traces the origins of the Polynesians back one thousand years to the region of the South China Sea, their voyage across the Pacific, and the fascinating history of Hawaiian culture.

Non-Fiction

 

Grand Ukulele by Jake Shimabukuro

Music CD

 

Rust on the moon by I Mihana

Music CD

 

N Dis Life by Israel Kamakawiwo'ole

Music CD