Aloha Kauai

by Waimea Williams

Aloha Kaua' A Childhood takes the reader back to the Kaua'i of the 1950's - back to a time when Kaua'i was a truly isolated island and a trip to Honolulu was a luxury beyond most people. It was a time long before television, a time when radio was still in its infancy. Author Waimea Williams weaves together a beautiful story and fills the pages of Aloha Kaua' A Childhood with compelling anecdotes, heartfelt quotations and a sense of unity that was prevalent in 1950's Kaua'i. She offers a glimpse into the values of the people who inhabited the island in a time where family came first, the elderly were treated with respect regardless of their background or social standing, generosity was a way of life, and public behavior defined you, your family and your ancestors.

Genres: Nonfiction, Travel

155 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 2004

About the author

Raised in rural Hawaii, Waimea started performing as a teenager, spent a decade in Europe singing opera, then studied creative writing at UC/Berkeley. Now back in the islands, her debut novel “Aloha, Mozart” made the San Francisco Book Review’s Top 10 for 2012. In Hawai’i it won a 2013 Ka Palapala Po’okela (excellence) award, was featured at the Hawaii Book and Music Festival, at UH/Maui Celebrates Reading, and at the Squaw Valley writers conference. The author has a second novel under submission and is at work on a third.

Follow Waimea on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/authorwwilliams

Reviews

[Kamakana · Rating 5 out of 5]

if you like this review i now have website: www.michaelkamakana.com

??? 2000s: nostalgia for an era that was ending when i was a kid- but my mom grew up in those times, when this island was rural, before much tourists, before much military, before tv, before…

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Excellent, well organized discussion of what Hawaii was like in the fifties with quotations from various reputable Hawaiian sources enriching the text and heading sections. valuable for understanding modern Hawaii. Cover notes call this a "memoir" but it is more hawaiian history than personal memoir, though that is there too. Stumbled upon a paperback copy of this in a second hand bookstore: the pages are yellowed and speckled (sea air is unkind to book) but the spine was uncracked. I got the feeling I was the first person reading this copy.

[Annie · Rating 3 out of 5]

I found this book in a little smoothie shop on the road to Hana. This book taught me a lot about the changes from hawaiian culture to modern day hawaii, which was significantly influenced by missionaries and the tourism industry. interesting read if you want to learn about what hawaii used to be like in the late 1800's and early 1900's.