Posted on: Sunday, October 24, 2004
 |
By Lee Cataluna
Advertiser Columnist
There are many influences on the work of newly published author Wilfred Toki: his childhood at a plantation camp in Waialua, the memories of fishing in Kaiaka bay, his career as an artist and illustrator. But the greatest influence on his writing was his first-born grandchild, Oliver.
"You know how grandchildren are, they're always, 'Grandpa, tell me a story!' " Toki says.
"I couldn't really tell him fairy-tale kind stories. I never really knew those. So I made up from what I knew. What I heard. Hawaiian stories. Places where I went fishing."
Something that happened to him as a child became the inspiration for a fanciful tale of the friendship between child and a shark.
"My father had a koi fish pond in the back of the house. We had 'o'opu in there, koi, baby mullet, holehole, frogs and bass. To clean the pond, we would take out all the fish, put them in a copper tank, then scrape pond and get all the mud and leaves out. One time, we were doing that and I looked back and saw one big koi had jumped out of the tank. Our cat was there eating its tail. The tail was almost all gone.
"I quickly put the koi back in bucket and opened faucet and held it under the strong bubbles for about one hour. It revived. It came back. Eventually, it healed, though the tail never did grow back. I didn't have a name for that koi, but was my favorite because just like I rescued it."
Launching point
When Oliver was little, he would go with Grandpa to visit Kaiaka Bay and the other places in his bedtime stories.
"I think he believed everything. I would say, 'That's the mountain where the pig used to stay. That's the river. That's the bay.' And he believed."
Toki is something of a believer himself. He still remembers the stories told to him by art-school classmate Sam Ka'ai, now a well-known Hawaiian cultural expert on Maui. Ka'ai told him that expert Hawaiian divers knew how to catch and hold bubbles on their eyes, which allowed them to see more clearly underwater. Toki is certain this is possible, and he made it the premise of a story about a girl who befriends sea creatures on the reef.
He also believes that kindness will be returned, as in his story of a baby turtle who later takes his rescuer on a journey to see the world.
Started with pictures
When he was telling Oliver stories, the words would just come to him. Writing down the stories wasn't as easy. Toki, who spent years creating images for logos and marketing campaigns and who is also an accomplished painter and stone worker, found he needed to start with the pictures. He would create a series of illustrations to tell each story, and then search for the words to match the pictures.
He did his own layouts of the pages, trying to match his handwriting to the right type size to fit the page.
"I cannot type. I just write free hand. My granddaughter set the type for me."
It was Toki's wife, Shige, who found a publisher for his stories. She so loved the collections of drawings that she insisted on sharing them with visitors to their Salt Lake home, even if Toki told her , "Never mind that." One day, her enthusiasm paid off. A visiting friend happened to know a publisher and offered to make the introductions.
Beach House Publishing has just released two of Toki's books, "Moku and the He'e" and "Hana and the Honu," with more titles to come. Toki has a dozen books already written and illustrated, all stories about earnest people, friendship between animals and humans and respect for all living things. All the stories are Oliver-tested and Shige-approved.
"All I wanted was to have the books for my grandchildren, so that they knew it was for them. But to have my stories published, I'm so grateful."
Lee Cataluna's column runs Tuesdays, Fridays and Sundays. Reach her at 535-8172 or lcataluna@honoluluadvertiser.com.
That experience became the launching point for a story about a child who saves a baby shark from the clutches of a crab and revives the shark in the bubbles of a waterfall. The shark eventually grows up and becomes the protector of all the animals of the bay.
Wilfred Toki's first publications are Hawaiian stories based on his childhood that he first told to his grandson, Oliver.
| BOOK LAUNCH PARTY
I Saturday I 5-7 p.m. I Native Books and Beautiful Things, Ward Warehouse I Open to the public |
