My friend Richie from up the street insists on referring to the Hawaiian islands other than Oahu as the "outer islands."  I used to tell  him that the correct phrase is [...]
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Secrets to Living Life Hawaiian Style Compiled and Edited by Mark Ellman and Barbara Santos You don’t have to be born in Hawai‘i to live life with aloha. It only requires an open heart and mind. In this book, some o [...]
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This extraordinary collection of Hawaiian sayings--collected, translated, and annotated by Mary Kawena Pukui--offers a unique opportunity to savor the wisdom, poetic beauty, and earthy humor of these finely crafted expressions. The sayings may be appreciated individually and collectively for their a [...]
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Three books celebrating Hawaiian culture and traditions make wonderful gifts for friends and family. Sending gifts to the mainland? Mail a warm reminder of the be [...]
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This book comes from Patrick Ka`ano`i, a Native Hawaiian trained by his kupuna, and has much wisdom documented nowhere else. Unique to this work is an [...]
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Many will recall two remarkable books by Shelly Mecum: God’s Photo Album and this time last year, The Watercolor Cat, with Peggy Chun. The astonishing and moving Peggy Chun saga did not end there.

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The sand beach that stretches nearly a mile beyond the Kalaupapa wharf was always laid smooth by the tide. Hansen’s disease plays havoc with feet, ulcerating them, crippling them. Such feet walk poorly. And in sand they cannot walk at all. Most patients in Henry’s time left no footprints in that golden sand.

In 1936 ten-year-old Henry was taken from his family on the Island of Hawai‘i and sent to Kalihi Hospital on O‘ahu. He was later transferred to Kalaupapa on the rugged north coast of Moloka‘i, where he has spent most of the past 65 years in this remote village with a tragic history as a Hansen’s disease colony. During its century as a virtual prison, more than 8,000 people were exiled to Kalaupapa, until the introduction of sulfone drugs in the 1940s. Today fewer than 20 patients remain.

No Footprints in the Sand: A Memoir of Kalaupapa by Henry Nalaielua with Sally-Jo Bowman is one of only a few memoirs ever shared with the public by a Kalaupapa patient. Its intimacy and candor make it, in the words of Pulitzer Prize-winning poet W.S. Merwin, “a rare and precious human document.”

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This July day was insufferably hot in Honolulu. Henry Nalaielua sat perspiring at the grounds of ‘Iolani Palace, even though his chair was in the shade. He and some 500 others had listened all morning to prayers and hymns and speeches.

And then, near the end of the long ceremonies and ecumenical service, it was Nalaielua’s turn. The notes for his speech were under his ginger lei, in the pocket of his aloha shirt—his best blue one. He shuffled the few steps to the lei-draped lectern on hobbly feet that reminded him of his mission of honor. He had come to the palace from his home at Kalaupapa on Moloka‘i, where he was sent as a Hansen’s disease (leprosy) patient before World War II, and where he has lived most of his 70 years.

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In 1985 the renowned muralist Martin Charlot was commissioned by the McDonald’s Corporation to paint a wall mural for the company’s restaurant in Kane‘ohe. The result was Hawaiian Folkways , a 5 x 24-foot work depicting a day in the life of Waiahole Valley, the lush rural community a few miles up the coast in the heart of windward O‘ahu.

Local Traffic Only: Proverbs Hawaiian-Style brings the reader up close and personal with this wonderful work of art.

Peopled with farmers and fisherman, keiki and kupuna, cops and robbers and many others, Charlot’s charming mural illustrates more than 100 proverbs—Hawaiian, biblical and others. All the people featured in the mural are real-life friends, family and acquaintances of the artist. From siblings and children to local firefighters and an unsuspecting deliveryman to McDonald’s Hawaii CEO Pat Kahler, to then-actor, now-Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, Charlot’s models acted out for him in person the proverbs depicting the good and bad sides of human nature.

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