Book Review

Frances H. Kakugawa Commentary Special to The Hawai‘i Herald “The Go For Broke Spirit: Portraits of Courage” is poetry that preserves the humanity of man. I first looked at the photos without reading the text and was driven to my gut with emotions. The portrait accompanying each story is a novel in itself — each....

Lorraine Oda Special to The Hawai‘i Herald Memories of the earliest Japanese families who settled in Käne‘ohe in Windward O‘ahu have been preserved for succeeding generations in the newly released second edition of “Partial History of the Japanese in Kaneohe, 1898 to 1959.” The new edition contains 39 new family histories. The first edition was....

DEAR FRANCES By Frances H. Kakugawa Omoiyari . . . Think of others first and good karma will return to you. — Frances H. Kakugawa With each new year comes another birthday that moves us closer to the setting sun. I recently read a novel that defies all of our concerns about aging and dying.....

CHILDREN'S BOOK BY Gwen Battad Ishikawa New Children’s Book Follows the Whimsical Adventures of a Playful Puppy “Peekaboo the Poi Dog” Island Heritage Hardcover, 32 pages, $13.95 Island Heritage Publishing’s newest book, “Peekaboo the Poi Dog,” is a story about the creative adventures of a little puppy that spends a rainy day lost in her....

Karleen C. Chinen Commentary Sometimes we grow numb to the numbers and forget the individual lives that were affected by Executive Order 9066. And then comes along a new work that jolts us back to that reality. Tatsumi Hayashi’s translated work, “Haisho Tenten: An Internment Odyssey,” on the internment experiences of Kumaji “Suikei” Furuya is....

Gerald Kato Commentary Special to The Hawai‘i Herald As a young boy, Ted Tsukiyama was cast in an Ali‘iolani Elementary School Thanksgiving Day play as Captain Miles Standish, commander of the Plymouth Colony, a representative American who founded and forged the shape of the country. The experience made a deep and lasting impression on Tsukiyama....

Bill Fernandez From “Kaua‘i Kids in Peace and War” Published with Permission Editor’s note: Author Bill Fernandez was an inquisitive and impressionable young boy growing up on Kaua‘i when Japan launched its aerial attack on Pearl Harbor...

Alan Suemori Commentary Special to The Hawai‘i Herald There is a hauntingly telling interlude in Julie Checkoway’s second book, “The Three-Year Swim Club: The Untold Story of Maui’s Sugar Ditch Kids,” that captures all at once the complexity and mystery of Soichi Sakamoto, the legendary Maui-born nisei, who some consider the greatest American swimming coach....

Frances H. Kakugawa Special to The Hawai‘i Herald Before my mother died, she said something that left me with a nagging thought. “Don’t let me be forgotten,” she told the minister.” What if all my ancestors in...

Alan Suemori Special to The Hawai‘i Herald Editor’s note: The arrival of a new year always inspires new outlooks on life and the future of society. Some lose their luster after a few months — others...