The Pacific Chronicles
Myth comes to life when two ordinary kids are summoned to help protect the Hawaiian Islands.
- Award-winning
- 3 books, complete series
- Illustrated by Richard Eldridge
- Hawaiian words woven into the dialogue
Islanders
Eleven-year-old Kilikina and her fourteen-year-old brother Kaimana stumble into a hidden, legendary world on Oʻahu and wake up with magical abilities. Their guides are Eleu and Molawa, two Menehune, the tiny builders of Hawaiian legend. The siblings learn they've been chosen to protect the islands from a great evil.
Mākaha
Every legend needs a villain, and this is his origin story. Mākaha is a mongoose who was banished from paradise and discovers he can't die. He builds an army of invasive creatures to take on the Menehune. It's a fantasy built on a real problem: mongooses really were brought to Hawaiʻi, and they really do threaten native birds today.
Hana
Mākaha returns with the ancient evil Moʻo Kuna. Kaimana and Kilikina must help every native creature, from the smallest gecko to the mighty ʻio hawk, stand together to defend the valley. The series ends with a story about courage, leadership and protecting the heart of aloha.
The Menehune of legend
There are many legends of the Menehune told throughout Hawaiian history. Most describe them as mischievous, hard-working and even comedic, with written accounts of their adventures going back as far as 1907.
Eleu and Molawa are two of only three Menehune who are named. The rest are anonymous, a fitting trait for such shadowy people. Uncle Charlie, a Hawaiian storyteller, described the two in his writings from 1995:
“Eleu in Hawaiian means ‘quick and nimble,’ and whenever Eleu moved, he was so quick that he disappeared and no one could follow him. Molawa's name means ‘lazy,’ but what most people didn't know was that whenever he appeared to be sleeping or lazy, his magical self became imperceptible and he would go around the island and do good deeds.”
Menehune tales made a sudden appearance in Hawaiian newspapers and journals in 1861. Before that, the earliest Hawaiian scholars and missionaries made no mention of the mysterious forest people who built in the night.
From the world of the books
The places behind the story
This video is from an artist I grew up with on the Big Island of Hawaiʻi. It features the places we grew up playing in, the inspiration for much of what happens in The Pacific Chronicles. Fun fact: Chase, the artist behind the music, appears in book 2.
Love stories like these? See our reading list of books like Percy Jackson, but Hawaiian →