In the lush, hidden valley of the Pacific, the peace of the Menehune and native species they protect is shattered when the mongoose MÄkaha, along with the ancient evil Moâo Kuna, returns with an army of invasive creatures set on destruction. With the lives of all inhabitants at stake, brother and sister Kaimana and Kilikina are thrust into roles beyond their years.
Amidst engineering marvels and enchanting magic, the siblings navigate through challenges of courage, leadership, and the complexities of allyship in a world where every creature, from the smallest gecko to the mightiest 'io, must stand united or fall. As the invaders approach, the Menehune, including the ingenious Eleu and Molawa, devise strategies that blend age-old wisdom with innovative warfare.
This epic narrative explores themes of friendship, bravery, and the ethics of war, set against a backdrop of paradise under siege. With each page, readers dive deeper into a world where the fight for survival is as much about preserving the heart of aloha as it is about defeating the enemy.
Perfect for fans of Redwall, Percy Jackson or The Spiderwick Chronicles series!
In the lush, hidden valley of the Pacific, the peace of the Menehune and native species they protect is shattered when the mongoose MÄkaha, along with the ancient evil Moâo Kuna, returns with an army of invasive creatures set on destruction. With the lives of all inhabitants at stake, brother and sister Kaimana and Kilikina are thrust into roles beyond their years.
Amidst engineering marvels and enchanting magic, the siblings navigate through challenges of courage, leadership, and the complexities of allyship in a world where every creature, from the smallest gecko to the mightiest 'io, must stand united or fall. As the invaders approach, the Menehune, including the ingenious Eleu and Molawa, devise strategies that blend age-old wisdom with innovative warfare.
This epic narrative explores themes of friendship, bravery, and the ethics of war, set against a backdrop of paradise under siege. With each page, readers dive deeper into a world where the fight for survival is as much about preserving the heart of aloha as it is about defeating the enemy.
Perfect for fans of Redwall, Percy Jackson or The Spiderwick Chronicles series!
Hundreds of years ago.
"Why are we doing this?" a young Menehune named Nakoa asked as he climbed up the rope hand-over-hand. At just above two feet tall, Nakoa was the average height of a Menehune and immensely strong. He was an engineer studying under Molawa. Nakoa was following Molawa and trying to keep up, but it wasn't easy. The normally chill, laid-back Menehune was moving at a rapid pace above him.
"Eleu and I were talking with Maui, and he gave us a few specific projects that no one else knows about. This is one of them," Molawa said, not slowing down even a little as he continued upwards. The black rock of the cliff face was slippery in parts, and occasionally small outcroppings or shrubs made it difficult to climb, but he seemed to pay them no heed.
Nakoa chanced a look backwards, and his stomach turned. They were far higher than he'd ever been. "Bruh, slow down."
"I'll haul you up." The voice floated down from above.
"How are you up there already?" Nakoa stopped again in disbelief.
"Hold on tight."
Nakoa rolled his eyes. Molawa isnât going to shake me off. All at once, he shot upwards at an incredible speed. He rocketed up over the edge and tumbled into a heap next to Molawa who was carefully winding the rope up at the top of the cliff.
"Glad you could finally make it. Stuck in traffic?" Molawa said with a twinkle in his eye.
"Shoots. Let's work." Nakoa stood up and backed up a little farther from the edge just for good measure. It was several hundred feet down to the path and another couple hundred feet to the valley floor below.
They were on a shelf. It was maybe a quarter-mile in either direction left and right from where they stood, and only about a football field's length back from the edge of the cliff to another steep lava rock face upwards approximately twenty feet, and then above that, blue sky.
"What's back there?" Nakoa asked.
"That's the ocean," Molawa answered casually.
"WaitâŚthe ocean?" Nakoa echoed, startled.
"Yep. We're below sea level right now. This whole valley is below sea level. You can't see it from the outside world. And you see this spot we're on?" Molawa said coyly.
"YeahâŚ" Nakoa had a feeling he wouldn't like what he was about to hear.
"We are going to change it into one big basin."
"We're what? Why? How? Nahhh."
"Because Maui said to let the ocean in," Molawa said as he walked over to a large pile of brush and kicked at it with his foot, exposing several tools.
"Maui said to let the ocean in? But it already comes in over there." Nakoa pointed to where the water was rushing across a low point and over the edge, creating the waterfall that obscured the cave entrance to the valley.
"Yep."
"Why?"
"Want to ask him?" Molawa said sarcastically as he tossed a pickaxe to the very confused Nakoa.
Nakoa swallowed. "Nope." He'd only met the giant demigod once, and that was plenty.
"Me neither. If there's one thing I know about that guy, it's don't interrupt him when he's working. And that guy's always working," Molawa said, selecting a long lever built out of several pieces of bamboo that had been wrapped tightly together with a thin string. He tossed a shovel at Nakoa, who barely dropped the pickaxe in time before catching it.
"No more questions. We have a lot to do, and there's only two of us. So watch when I show you how to do this, and we'll get started. We're going to build the headwall first. Riiiight aboutâŚ" Molawa thought for a moment, his hand scratching the blue helmet on his head.
"Here." He stabbed the ground with his foot. "Toss me that pickaxe. I need it," he said to Nakoa. Molawa stared at the ground thinking and caught the pickaxe without even looking.
Nice, Nakoa thought. He watched as Molawa jammed the tip in the sandy soil then dashed in a large arc towards the cliff that lay ahead of them making a quarter of a circle from where he stood all the way to one end. He then ran back, stuck the sharp tip in the same spot, and ran in the other direction, creating the layout of a half-moon on the ground. This only took a few seconds. He moved so quickly Nakoa had a difficult time keeping up with him.
"There." Molawa was somehow not even out of breath. He pointed to the middle farthest away from where they stood, straight back. "The water is going to come in from that point and settle in all through here." He motioned to the area inside where he'd just marked. "But we don't have to worry about getting it filled with watah [slang for water]. That's Maui's job. We jus' have to dig this out and build the wall."
"All of this?" Nakoa asked as he looked around.
"Yep. It'll go quick. I'll show you why. I have a secret technique for this kind of work, bruh." Molawa winked then strode over to a different pile of dried brush. He reached into it and pulled out a set of tools that had smooth wood handles with a carved stone heads that had been tied to the tops. The tools were shaped like an "r".
"Grab one in each hand," Molawa said, tossing two to Nakoa at the same time. Nakoa caught them easily then tested the weight and balance in each hand. They felt good.
"Do like I do," Molawa said, moving his arms in a windmill motion. He slowly leaned forwards, and as the stone tips of the tools met the ground, they dug deep. When his arms moved back, the ground hurled away from him. The Menehune walked forward windmilling his arms faster and faster until they were just a blur. Soon, he was carving out a deep swath of ground in front of him and making a pile of earth behind him. Nakoa sighed, mimicked the motion Molawa was making, and walked in the opposite direction.
The sun dipped lower on the horizon above them as the two Menehune worked tirelessly. In a few short hours, the basin had been dug as deep as the sandy topsoil would allow exposing rock across the whole area.
"Get the pick," Molawa said, wiping his forearm across his sweat-covered brow.
Nakoa was tired, but he felt good. He always felt good when he worked hard. He nodded and tossed Molawa the pickaxe.
"Maui said he left me a present up here. Let's see if it is what I think it is," Molawa mused aloud. He dragged the tip of the pickaxe across the stone below until he felt it dip down ever so slightly.
"Aha! He did. What a guy," Molawa said brightly. He swung the tool mightily and brought it crashing down on a particular spot. Instead of bouncing back, it found the groove between two separate rocks and jammed in deeply.
"Grab the Uh-oh Bar."
Nakoa darted over to the long bamboo lever and brought it over to Molawa quickly. Molawa threw his weight against the pickaxe in the opposite direction and tipped up a large, flat stone. It was approximately two feet across, six feet long, and nearly eight inches thick in almost a perfect rectangular shape.
"Jam it under there!" Molawa shouted.
Nakoa shoved the end of the bamboo bar under the rock, and Molawa slowly eased up his tension on the pickaxe.
"EeeeasyâŚno need to rush," Molawa said to himself as the huge, heavy rock settled slowly onto the bar. "Now. This is what we'll use at the edge of the basin. These will be our wall." Molawa pointed to the stone.
"That's why you need me. Because I'm the best mason," Nakoa said proudly.
"I need the best because we only get one chance to get this right," Molawa said. "Now get the rope. We'll use it to haul these to where they belong."
After a few more hours, hundreds of stones had been dug up and placed where they belonged. They used no mortar for between the stones, instead Nakoa fit each rock together dry, cutting the edges that laid against each other to be flat in a technique called uhauhumu pĹhaku [dry stack masonry that used different sizes of stones arranged together. No cement was ever needed.].
Each stone was placed at a slight angle facing inward. After the larger stones were positioned, smaller stones were added to backfill the spaces around the interlocking stones. When the water poured in, it would put outward pressure on the stones, moving them together tighter for a better fit and a stronger structure, the key to this particular type of engineering.
As twilight set, Molawa had Nakoa test both the inside and outside of the now-large structure that they had built. The wall was nearly four feet tall and several hundred feet long. The basin at its deepest was almost twelve feet deep and sloped up to the edge of the wall cleanly along the entire radius.
"One more thing," Molawa said when they were finished.
"What is it?" Nakoa asked, examining the callouses on his hands that had been scraped up from the day's work. It had taken him a long time to build up the thick pads that protected his palms, and he was very proud of them.
"I need you to do something you absolutely will not like."
Nakoa squinted. "What?"
"Make this center stone here so that I can pull it out easily, like picking out a dry booger."
"Seriously?"
"Yes. And if I pull it out, I want these stones here," Molawa tapped the six surrounding stones, "so that they also come out. There's going to be a lot of water in here, and we need to make it so that it will release all at once."
Nakoa shrugged. It bothered him that his flawless craftsmanship would have an intentional weakness, but he also wasn't the least bit interested in arguing with the senior Menehune. After a few minutes, he'd made the necessary adjustments.
"So you know this is going to contain almost a million gallons of ocean water, right?" Nakoa asked when he was finished.
"Nine hundred and one thousand gallons, yes," Molawa said. "Good job on the math there, Lil-N.â
Nakoa beamed. "And why do we need a million gallons of ocean water up here where no one can see it?"
Molawa shrugged. "No idea. But Maui wanted this hana [work] done well. Clearly an important project, right? 'Cause he used us."
The younger Menehune smiled. "I guess."
Molawa fist-bumped him. "Let's get out of here. It's dark, and I'm tired. Maui said everyone moves into the valley tomorrow. I'm curious to see who will be there."
The fate of a lush valley and the Menehune way of life hangs in the balance as two teen siblings find themselves responsible for defending both against an army of invasive creatures bent on their destruction in this dynamic and intriguing middle grade read. What could possibly go wrong?
The story opens shortly before an attack on the Hidden Valley is launched by the mongoose Makaha and the ancient evil Moâo Kuna. They lead an army of mynas, mongoose, chameleons, frogs, feral cats, wallabies and other creatures against the peaceful Menehune. The action heats up when itâs revealed that Kaimana is going to be in charge of coordinating all the medical care âfor whatever happens next.â
Sounds ominous, doesnât it? Thatâs because it is.
âWhateverâ turns out to be hordes of invasive animals and Moâo â a giant lizard that can shape-change. Uh-oh. The action culminates in a giant battle scene reminiscent of the Pevensies and Aslan vs. the White Witch in the movie version of The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
This is a sprightly and spirited book that uses the power of story to skillfully convey biology, history, legend, culture and tradition. Colorful characters like Chief Lokomaikaâi, Kanaka, Momilani the expert farmer, and Eleu the engineer spring to life on almost every page. Itâs a clever blend of history, culture, language, fantasy, and enchantment. Chapters are typically short and easy to digest. The dialogue is lively and engaging, especially between fourteen year-old Kaimana and his sister Kilikina, age eleven. Middle grade readers will especially enjoy the snarky repartee, Bruh.
Tip: You may not want to read this book on an empty stomach. The descriptions of Laulau (a Hawaiian dish of meat or fish wrapped in taro leaves and steamed) and other traditional food while have you drooling! (Don't ask how I know that.) Other tip: How Kilikina unites the sea creatures to fight against the invasion is priceless. Cheehoo!
The Prologue may be a bit overlong for some young readers. But it provides important background. So donât skip it. Some readers may find the story a little slow to get rolling as the two siblings and their friends prepare for the invasion. But plenty of action, intrigue, and adventure await. Footnotes explain Hawaiian lore and legend and terms so readers donât get lost.
Hana: The Pacific Chronicles is Book 3 of the Pacific Chronicles. A familiarity with prior books in the series is helpful but not mandatory. The door is left open for a sequel. So stayed tuned! Mahalo.
My Rating: 3.5