Kaua'i Kids in Peace and War

You could call Kaua'i Kids in Peace and War the Hawai'i version of The Dangerous Books for Boys and Girls because it describes a kid's barefoot adventures on the Hawaiian island of Kaua'i during the 1930s-1940s. He and his friends were very creative in their play. Author Bill Fernandez grew up in the tiny town of Kapa'a, one of the few places where sugar and pineapple plantations did not dominate life. There were few stores and no money to buy toys so kids created their own using tree branches, pine cones, palm fronds, newspapers glued with poi for kites, tin roofs, ironing boards, and firecrackers. As sugar cane trains rolled near their homes they pulled cane from moving trains to enjoy the sweet juice. In Part I, readers will chuckle when he describes his first ten years as he explored the ocean, made tin canoes, picked seaweed and opihi from the rocks and surf, tried to find Santa Claus in the mountains, slid down waterfalls, and played Cowboys and Indians for endless days with no concern for tomorrow. His hukilau description brings the excitement to life when the community captures a large school of fish with a net surround and then enjoys a party on the beach. When he developed asthma, his half-Hawaiian mother brought him to a kahuna (shaman) and Chinese herbalist. In this town settled by immigrants who came to work on the plantations, Bill's family, friends, and neighbors were Chinese, Okinawan, Philippino, Japanese, German, Portugese, French, Irish, Russian, Native Hawaiians, and others who created a sharing society, all struggling, all helping each other. Buddhist temples sit next to Christian churches. Bill's parents built the largest movie theater in the islands, Roxy, in 1939. He told its story in Rainbows Over Kapa'a. Kaua'i Kids is a perfect companion to that book and is also filled with photos. Part II begins when Japan bombed Pearl Harbor a hundred miles away on a beautiful December morning. Radios went silent. A Japanese plane landed on a nearby island. Fear of invasion by Japan gripped defenseless Kaua'i and life was no longer carefree. Blackouts, shelling by Japanese, gas masks, a sense of being very much alone and unprotected dominated life. One morning he awoke to find hundreds of GIs camped on a church lawn. The Fighting 69th had arrived and with it, antagonism toward the Asian-Americans who were friends and family. Bill discovered the profits to be made buying cigarettes, cokes, and candy for the GIs, even delivering them after dark to the machine gun nest near his oceanside home. Soon he started shining shoes. He learned a lot about life from the men and watching the action in town. The hard work of pineapple picking replaced his lazy days with friends. But the ocean, source of food for islanders to supplement meager rationed food, was off-limits and barb-wired. Boats and fishing were banned. The easy-living island became a big prison under military control. These experiences with military occupation were unique in America and Bill tells it through the eyes of a child. Bill's education took a major turn in 1944 when he was sent to Honolulu to Kamehameha School for children of Native Hawaiian blood. The book ends as Bill flies there, realizing his life would not be the same.