Island Books
Cover coffee table with great gift books

By Wanda A. Adams
Assistant Features Editor

Cory Lum • The Honolulu Advertiser

Designer Jane Hopkins has done a lovely job of using the postcards' muted tones, as well as thumbnail photos of vintage stamps, to tie each chapter together. The postcards, all from the period 1900-1915 and ranging in subject matter from "hula hula girls" to humuhumunukunukuapua'a, illustrate the way in which Hawai'i was being portrayed at the time.

Steiner's text contrasts their fanciful and romanticized vision with the reality of changing lifestyles and an altered landscape. He also explains why postcards were so important then (there were no inexpensive, easy-to-operate cameras so they made up the record of one's holiday). He offers a history of his grandfather's company and peppers the text with little-known facts. (Did you know, for example, that Central Union Church was originally on Beretania and Richards, or that there was once an elaborate Victorian confection called Honolulu High School?)

For collectors, there's a catalog at the back, showing every single postcard in miniature and offering the sorts of details (such as the address side type) postcard buffs crave.

"Waikiki Magic Beside the Sea" by Allan Seiden. Island Heritage, hardback, $24.99: This is a coffee-table book in which the text doesn't take a back seat to the photos — at least in the important early chapters that describe Waikiki prior to World War II. Seiden, a writer, photographer and archivist who has lived in Hawai'i since 1975, is retracing paths walked by many writers before, but his is a clear and well-researched vision that explodes several myths.

Merely by the purposeful choice of a word, for example — "wetland" instead of "swamp" — Seiden banishes the widely held picture of pre-Ala Wai Canal Waikiki as a damp, muddy backwater. In its place, with careful scholarship, he shows how the ahupua'a of Waikiki was ideally (and idyllically) suited to the needs of Hawaiians, with its reef-sheltered beach, its marshes full of fish and bird life, its freshwater streams and the forests of Mo'ili'ili and Manoa rising up behind.

As is always the case when we place even a small bit of the Hawaiian landscape under a microscope, we learn that there were many place names here, not just one. In this case, we find much that we assume has always been there has been changed and changed again over time, and that the legacy of royal landholdings in Waikiki means that much of the land there is still owned by trusts that benefit kanaka maoli.

Seiden owns the Hawaiian Legacy Archive, a wide-ranging collection of Hawai'i images, and he and designer Jim Wageman make lavish use of paintings, sketches, clippings and other artwork, as well as Seiden's own contemporary photographs.

Open to question, however, is Seiden's decision to use contemporary photos to illustrate certain historical sites and practices (lo'i architecture, taro-making, etc.) — a photograph of Butch Helemano at his living history hale in Waimea Valley, for example, meant to show how Hawaiians lived. Although Seiden does explain in an early note, it would be easy for less careful readers to assume that such photos are historic in nature, and in Waikiki.

When the story reaches the late 20th century, Seiden tells the story mainly through pictures that make the most of what beauty is left in this tourist haven. Although the faces and flowers are beautiful (and will probably attract the tourist buyer), the vision of Waikiki's early waterlands are what will remain with me from this enlightening and beautiful book.

"Hawai'i Place Names, Shores, Beaches, and Surf Sites" by John R. K. Clark. University of Hawai'i Press, paper, $12.95: Don't let this book's name fool you. The new release by deputy fire chief John Clark is not to be confused with the classic "Place Names of Hawaii" by Pukui, Elbert and Mookini, though it respectfully adopts the same format. Nor is it the sort of ho-hum reference text the name might suggest.

Clark, a former lifeguard and author of a series of respected books on our beaches, interviewed more than 900 people to collect the popular place names along our shores — and the stories behind these names. That's what makes fascinating reading.

Every few listings, Clark breaks off to allow his informants to "talk story" in brief first-person segments called "mo'olelo." Here is a cross-section of Hawai'i talking about Hawai'i, from the late Auntie Irmgard Aluli telling about her Puamana home on Maui to a group of just guys — surfers who date back to the hollow board days — explaining how and why the surf spot off Waikiki got the name "China Walls." (A young Richard Okita was among the first to surf there, in the '40s, and had recently been studying the Great Wall of China in school.)

An awesome amount of work went into gathering the information for the 2,500 entries in this book and Clark deserves a big mahalo for preserving information that many would consider beneath research. The names and their stories span the entire 20th century (the eldest of his informants was born in 1887) and include Hawaiian names and both older and contemporary English names.

Guaranteed: Get this book for the surfers, divers, swimmers and beachcombers in the family, and then don't expect to get a word out of them for the next few hours as they page through. Except, of course, that they'll want to read you all the interesting parts.

"The Island of Hawai'i" photography by Douglas Peebles, text by Jan TenBruggencate. Mutual Publishing, hardback, $29.95: Douglas Peebles' photo books make you long for places you have never been, and vow to return soon to places you once enjoyed.

In "The Island of Hawai'i," No. 3 in his island series, the "Volcano Country" series is particularly striking: frightening views of "skylight" openings that reveal a bright orange landscape of flowing lava, haunting night landscapes of streaming lava and sulphurous smoke as the volcano meets the sea, Pu'u 'O'o fountain in the act of leaping skyward, a glowing lava tube like the jealous eye of Pele.

Jan TenBruggencate's text — in six chapters that sweep around the island counter-clockwise from Hilo to Mauna Kea and Mauna Loa — is necessarily a gloss, but he doesn't waste time with pallid description. Rather, he sprinkles the book with well-chosen historical facts that carry forward the theme set in Peebles' "Photographer's Note": that of an ever-changing island, the only one that's still growing. TenBruggencate, who is an Advertiser reporter based on Kaua'i, explores the idea of this island as a pu'uhonua, a refuge — for native species protected in several reserves; for fleeing criminals in traditional times and retirees and visitors today; for spirits and relics of the past.

Peeble's equally alluring "O'ahu" book is a collection of his favorite photos of the island he calls home, taken over a period of time. Like the others in this collection, it includes a feature that's particularly helpful, and not often found in photo books: a glossary of site descriptions for every photo, giving you just that little bit more of information you often crave.

Previous books in the series include one on all the islands and another on Maui. The Maui volume earned Peebles and TenBruggencate a 2001 Ka Palapala Po'okela Award from the Hawai'i Publishers Association, recognizing excellence in general illustrative books and excellence in photography.

"Sea Turtles of Hawai'i by Patrick Ching," University of Hawai'i Press, hardback, $16.95: Patrick Ching, a wildlife artist, former ranger for the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service and owner of the Naturally Hawaiian gallery and gift shop in Waimanalo, has written the first book exclusively about Hawaiian turtles.

Written in an easy, conversational style, this book is suitable for anyone from middle-school age and up, and it is clearly written to be intelligible to those who don't live here (Hawaiian words translated and so on).

A series of essays covers everything from turtles in traditional Hawaiian culture to the different types of turtles found in Hawaiian waters, the turtle life cycle and the many ways in which turtles today are endangered. Ching's science adviser on this project was George Balasz of the National Marine Fisheries Service, a longtime advocate of Hawai'i's honu.

Reach Wanda A. Adams at wadams@honoluluadvertiser.com or 535-2412.