Keiki need more Hawaiian-language books
By James Rumford
Special to The Advertiser
There really is no excuse for not having more children's picture books in Hawaiian.
Librarian Dave del Rocco at the State Library's Hawaiian and Pacific Collection will tell you that publishers don't put out books in Hawaiian because there is no money to be made. Children's book librarian Donna Tokumaru will tell you the same thing, as will Henry Bennett at Kamehameha Schools Press.
Just about everyone I talked to began by telling me that money was the No. 1 reason, but the truth is that money is only a small part of the problem.
Related to money is a downward-spiraling list of reasons that begins with the size of the audience. There aren't a lot of speakers of Hawaiian who are competent in reading that language, too. This means that the pool of those who can write in this language effectively is small. Even smaller is the number of editors. The result: a featherweight shelf of Hawaiian-language children's books in the main library of a state where Hawaiian is one of two official languages.
The situation is dire, but not without remedy. The Hawaiian language immersion schools are turning out competent speakers of Hawaiian. These children are brought up on Mainland-published children's picture books translated into Hawaiian by dedicated teachers who lovingly paste strips of Hawaiian words over the English text. Someday, they hope, some of their students will write books, become editors and enter the publishing world.
Mentioning "language immersion" brings up another reason there are few books in Hawaiian. Language immersion means creating a monolingual environment. Those publishers who bring out bilingual books (so that they can enhance the share of their audience) are chastised by some members of the Hawaiian-speaking community who want to see no English between the covers of a book, not even the word "copyright."
Like some ancient riddle, there seems to be no way out. But there is.
In 2001, Malama o Manoa asked me to do a book on the legend of Kahalaopuna. My conditions were simple: I wanted to make an edition in Hawaiian. At first, the book was going to be bilingual, but the more I found out about the printing world, the more I discovered how cheap making a book totally in Hawaiian would be. It cost $125 to change the printing plate in English to one in Hawaiian. The result: 700 copies in Hawaiian that were instantly gobbled up by the Hawaiian-reading public. And an English-language edition as well.
Another way out of this predicament is to plunge right into the fray. Earlier this year, Barbara Berg of Maui self-published a bilingual book called "Honu, the Green Sea Turtle" ($14.95). To Berg, a language teacher, including the Hawaiian is a necessary part of the message she wants to convey regardless of what people might think, regardless of how well the book sells. Each of her charming watercolors is accompanied by an explanatory sentence or two in English and Hawaiian. Her book is story-less, but it conveys through word and picture a sense of place — this place, these Islands.
This brings me to a book of bilingual proverbs called "Na 'Olelo No'eau No Na Keiki" (Island Heritage, 2001, $8.95). It is not the words that offer hope, but the brilliant illustrations done by Solomon Enos. They are so filled with a sense of place that by themselves they tell a wordless story of life in Makaha one long-ago day —Êfrom sunrise to sunset to evening. I now await some future book illustrated by this artist, because if someone can do in Hawaiian words what he has done in pictures, the result will be spectacular.
I guess I am an optimist. In the next several years, I hope to see more books in Hawaiian for children, not fewer. There is really no excuse.
So I end this column as I did the one in April: 'Auhea 'oukou, e na mea kakau puke?
Where are you, authors?
James Rumford is a writer and artist. Contact him at rumford@hawaii.rr.com.
