The Lion in the Lei Shop

by Kaye Starbird, Nancy Pearl

Marty Langsmith is only five years old when a strange thunder rolls across the Hawaiian sky and life as she knows it explodes into flames. With her mother, April, and hundreds of other women and children, Marty is evacuated from the ruins of Pearl Harbor and sent into a brave new world overshadowed by uncertainty and grief. Feeling abandoned by her deployed Army officer father in the wake of the attack, Marty is haunted by nightmares of the lion in the lei shop, a creature that’s said to devour happy children. But as the years pass, mother and daughter slowly begin to embrace their new life and make peace with the pain of the past. Spanning the tumultuous war years, The Lion in the Lei Shop deftly recaptures a dramatic chapter of American history.

Originally published in 1970 and reissued for a new generation of readers as part of renowned librarian Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust Rediscoveries series, this lyrical novel gives a rarely heard voice to the women and children of Pearl Harbor.

Genres: Historical Fiction, Fiction, World War II, Audiobook, Book Club, Womens, Family

293 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1970

Reviews

[Cynthia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Unnecessary Lion

Author Starbird alternates perspectives between a mother, April and her daughter, Marty, to tell the story of Pearl Harbor and the resulting war. This military family was stationed there when the Harbor was bombed. The mother is in her mid twenties and still in the honeymoon phase of her marriage. Five year old Marty idolizes her Colonel daddy. Both perspectives are dead on. Neither April nor Marty seem like unreliable narrators yet their remembrances are necessarily different. What is similar is the trauma they endured. This is characterized by Marty with the metaphor of a menacing lion who suddenly invades the nearby lei shop. This lion likes to stalk and eat little girls especially read headed ones who happen to look just like Marty! Though this is an apt metaphor it’s overused in my opinion and is the weakest part of the book. It wasn’t needed given the moving tales of both these characters. The cutesy aspect detracts from the excellent storyline. It did provide a catchy title though.

I like that librarian Nancy Pearl is searching out books from days gone by (“Lion” is from the 70’s) that might have been missed by most readers and is bringing them to our attention. “The Lion in the Leigh Shop” is one of the most straight forward, non tear jerking tales of Pearl Harbor and World War II that I’ve ever read. The book is personal and moving without playing with the reader’s emotions.

This review is based on an advance reader’s copy supplied by the publisher.
(Disclaimer given per FTC requirement.)

[Kerry · Rating 3 out of 5]

Picked up as an Amazon freebie. Thought the story would focus more on Honolulu immediately after the bombing of Pearl Harbor; instead, the events unfolded through the point of view of a few characters in an isolated military community. I was jolted by several racist comments (to be expected, I suppose, given the time period).

Events are told from the alternating perspectives of a military wife and her five-year-old daughter. This was an interesting technique to illustrate how memories of the same events are perceived by different people. It's hard to say which version was "right"; although a reader may tend to discount the child's version because of her age, the mother was so preoccupied that her version may not be completely correct either.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Kay Starbird's novel is one of a selection of out-of-print novels selected for reprinting by NPR's Nancy Pearl. I reviewed an advance copy for Bookbrowse First Impressions. What an excellent selection!

The story begins with the bombing of Pearl Harbor. April Langsmith and her 5-year-old daughter Marty are living in Oahu military housing with husband/father Lang when the bombing occurs. He is immediately called away by military responsibilities, leaving April and Marty to cope with being shifted around the island for their safety, and then shipped stateside, where they remain for the rest of the war. April and Marty alternate as narrators, and the difference in their perspectives on the events in Hawaii and later in Boston is, though not surprising, quite striking. It's particularly interesting to see the way Marty fills in the blanks when she has no information - she clearly doesn't understand, for instance, that her father's absence is not voluntary. Author Starbird's examination of the nature and function of memory is particularly effective. The writing is beautiful, striking just the right balance as it moves back and forth between the two contrasting voices. The lion of the title is a character in a recurring nightmare experienced by Marty and serves to tie the book together neatly in the end. This is a great read.

[Theresa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Marty is 5 on December 7, 1941 living with her young parents, a soldier father and her mother April who is pregnant with a younger sibling, in Schofield, the housing complex next to Wheeler Air Force Base in Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. This novel is told in alternating chapters by Marty and April, reflecting their memories of that time, as recalled 28 years later. Naturally, their memories are different, often wildly different. Marty's of course are those of a child but that alone does not explain the differences. As you become more absorbed in this story of war but told solely from the women's and childrens' viewpoint who lived through the bombing and the aftermath, you find yourself exploring memory, along with love, loss, separation, and finding oneself again after the impossible has happened.

This is not a story about WWII or Pearl Harbor. It is about those left behind to survive alone while their men were fighting a war and what happened to them, the quiet heroism the women and children exhibited. It's frankly unlike anything I've read before and reads true. Oh, and I'll leave it to you to find out all about the lion in the lei shop, except to say he's green. Marty insists.

[Lillian · Rating 4 out of 5]

“It was December seventh, nineteen forty-one. No, that’s history, not the beginning of a story. In the story, it was a rainy Sunday, and when I woke, the mynah birds were quarreling in the avocado trees on the lawn, and the rain was splashing and dripping from the great red poinsettia blooms outside my window." (P.10)

Told in the alternating voices of five-year old Marty Langsmith and her mother April thus begins the memory of that explosive day when their world was changed irreparably. Starbird paints a vivid portrait of the devastation of the Japanese attack, the uncertainty of their deployed father and husband and how these two females along with other women and children all over the island learned to cope with their sorrow and struggle to survive.

The fiction here is more real than history, more trustworthy and believable than any historical account.

Starbird’s prose is poetic, and lyrical with an insight into time, memory and the human condition that is incomparable. Her characters are vibrant, authentic and well drawn, who with pain, bits of humor and a strong sense of will, learn to navigate their broken world in the aftermath of a devastating moment in time.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book is now in my top 5 ever... The story and characters are so beautifully written, I chose to get 4 hours of sleep for 3nights, because I could not put it down.. I borrowed the book through my kindle library and I plan on buying a hard copy to have forever.

[Priscilla · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book will be one that will stick with me for a very long time. I just loved it. I felt like I knew these women and I was there with them. It’s such a different take on a WWII novel. I wanted more.

[Maureen · Rating 3 out of 5]

This was a First Reads win. I read a lot of WWII fiction. I agree with Nancy Pearl that this book is worthy of being pulled out of obscurity and re-presented and thank her for it - it is a great program, and I would look other works she chooses. I was glad to read this book as I haven't read any other fiction that deals with first hand experiences of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the time that followed. The main device used by the author is to tell the same stories twice, once from the mother's point of view and once from the daughter's point of view. Sometimes they differ, sometimes they are the same. Most of the time it is in very small details, and even when the difference is more significant, it doesn't make much difference per se. If I were inclined to be critical, I could say it is one way of bringing a shorter story up to full novel length! My favorite parts of the book were at the beginning right after the attack where the various neighborhood women came together in their stengths and weaknesses and despite their differences. I found the later parts of the book, once they had returned to the East to be weaker, and as an editor, I would have worked with the author to further develop some of this aspect prior to publication. It did leave me curious though as to how representative Marty and her cousin Joe's feelings were about their fathers. I think she probably did a pretty good job. Although my mother was an older child at the time, I so wish I had explored this period of her life with her in more detail as her father served a number of years in Europe during the war while I had the opportunity. This book is worth the read.

[Caroline · Rating 5 out of 5]

I won a copy of this book from good reads and very much appreciate being given the opportunity to read it. In the normal course of events, I probably would have not known of this book's existence which would have been my loss. "The Lion in the Lei Shop" is a very thought provoking and moving account of a military family's experiences during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the aftermath as told through the eyes of a young child and her mother. This account may be the closest I will ever come to understanding, on an even basic level, what it must have been like to have been caught up in a war and the repercussions felt by those who loved and been separated from those who served in the Pacific theater of WWII. War is not just about the fighting and the dying. It's also about the families of the Soldiers and what they have to endure as they wait to see if the ones the love ever come home. Will they even recognize themselves and how they and their memories have changed after the shooting stops. I highly recommend this book to anyone wishing to delve below the surface level of what a war does to those who are not the warriors, but inextricably connected to the carnage and the damage done by war.

[Janice · Rating 4 out of 5]

I very much enjoyed this book that tells of the WWII experience not of a soldier but of his wife and child. This family is living nearby when Pearl Harbor is bombed in 1941, and the author tells their story from the alternating perspective of the mother and the child. I especially liked the author's skill in seeing through the eyes of a 5 or 6 year old girl, the mixing of fantasy and reality to try to make sense to all that was happening, and the concrete logic that can be utilized by a child, and is sometimes hard to refute with an adult vision. The author also subtly contrasts the memories of both narrators, showing how the same incident is recounted differently.

[Brenda Yarborough · Rating 3 out of 5]

I've read quite a few books about WWII, but never one that was about the wives and civilians of Pearl Harbor immediately after the attack of Dec 7th. A very different perspective. . .this book is told in two different voices, the wife/mother and the child. I enjoyed the style of the author as well as the story.

[Mary · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book that opened my eyes to what it was like to be at Pearl Harbor when it was bombed if you were a military dependent. I'd never thought about those people before, and it was interesting to read about what life was like for them. It is well written, and it liked the two viewpoints of the same event.

[Laurie · Rating 5 out of 5]

LOVED this wonderful gem of a book. It is narrated by mother and five year old daughter of military family stationed at Schofield Base when Pearl Harbor was bombed and its aftermath. Beautifully written i could not put it down!!

[Tanya Eby]

I co-narrated this with Kate Rudd. I think it's going to be a really good listen. Kate is fantastic and she reads the sections from the daughter. I play the mom. What a lovely, lovely book.

[Michael Smith · Rating 4 out of 5]

Most novels about the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor focus on the soldiers and the sailors, but not this one. The protagonists here are April Langsmith -- only twenty-five, a Back-Bay Boston girl and and an Army Wife, married to an infantry captain and West Point graduate -- and their five-year daughter, Marty. By the end of 1941, they’ve all been at Schofield Barracks for a couple of years and Marty doesn’t even remember the mainland. Life on Hawaii is idyllic as far as Marty and her mother are concerned, but all that ends one Sunday morning with a sky full of screaming fighters, bullet holes in the kitchen door, and burning ships down in the harbor.

The first third of the book follows April and Marty in alternating chapters through that first long day with the other women and children (the Captain, like all the other officer, has already gone to the beaches with his men), and then through the days and weeks that follow as they wait to see if the Japanese are going to invade. And then there’s the slow journey back to San Francisco on a small overcrowded troop transport filled with pregnant women and small children, and the months that follow as they return to April’s parents’ home, and the years of unending war that follow that. And it becomes harder and harder to believe that their husband/father will ever come home. Their life is largely lived in a world of lonely women without men, a world in which Marty can’t help but feel abandoned by the father who was supposed to take care of them both.

I first read this deeply affecting book shortly after it was first published, and it a considerable impression on me, as it probably would on most people my age, whose fathers were in the war. Marty is only about seven years older than me, and I was also an Army brat, so nearly all the men I knew when I was little were in uniform. My mother ran the house while my father was overseas (and again when he was in Korea), and I can identify easily with Marty.

There are a number of themes here. Growing up in a time of great stress and confusion is an obvious one, but also change, unplanned for and unavoidable, and possibly everlasting (or so it seemed at the time). Change is good, but too much change gives a child nothing to hold onto and no way to anticipate and prepare for the future.

And a major theme is memory and how it works. How Marty remembers the details of the Japanese attack and the chaos of subsequent events are quite different from how her mother remembers them -- not just the reactions of a five-year-old compared to an adult but the details of the day, who said what, what other people did, and what they learned as the days and the weeks crawled on, and how they dealt with it all. This is a beautifully written story, “rediscovered” by Nancy Pearl and republished, and regardless of your age, you should go and find a copy.

[Lucile · Rating 4 out of 5]

Our book club has read a lot of WWII books in the last few years. Recently we talked about finding books about different wars or at least different perspectives on WWII. The Lion in the Lei Shop is the story of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and its aftermath told in alternating voices. Originally published in 1970, the book was re-published in 2013.

April is a young wife with a five-year-old daughter, Marty. Life in Hawaii is good. They enjoy Sunday's at the beach, a household servant, and a husband who comes home every night just like everyone else. The bombing of Pearl Harbor disrupts their Sunday, but April believes life will go on as usual. Her sister, Liz, whose husband is a military Doctor is less confident and requires physical and emotional care that adds more stress to April's life. April becomes the head of a "new" family, her sister, nephew, and daughter are now her sole responsibility as they travel to the United States by Navy ship followed by a train to Boston.

Marty and her cousin are disappointed when their beach day is canceled but continue to play with the other kids believing the worst is over. One of the neighbor boys convinces Marty that the small shop across the road, which once sold leis, now houses a green lion. It becomes the focus of her nightmares for many years as it symbolizes both fear and loss. Marty only knows life on the island, it is hard when she and her mother are sent to the United States with other pregnant women and their children. She loves her grandparents but doesn' like living in a big, stuffy house in Boston.

While April has to learn to live without Lang she is not fully aware of the impact on Marty. The dreams that haunt her daughter year after year are unexplainable. She doesn't understand the hate her daughter feels for her distant father. It takes a new step-father to help Marty to heal and end the nightmares about the awful green lion.

[Sandee · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this one, and learned a lot about the women and children left behind when their husbands went off to war. It was a hard way to live and cope with everything happening when Pearl Harbor was bombed. I thought of my Dad and Mom, he proposed to her the day it happened and left for the war soon after. I loved the little girl, Marty and her Mother...their story was interesting, but also sad at times. All in all, it was a good read for me.

From Amazon:
Marty Langsmith is only five years old when a strange thunder rolls across the Hawaiian sky and life as she knows it explodes into flames. With her mother, April, and hundreds of other women and children, Marty is evacuated from the ruins of Pearl Harbor and sent into a brave new world overshadowed by uncertainty and grief. Feeling abandoned by her deployed Army officer father in the wake of the attack, Marty is haunted by nightmares of the lion in the lei shop, a creature that’s said to devour happy children. But as the years pass, mother and daughter slowly begin to embrace their new life and make peace with the pain of the past. Spanning the tumultuous war years, The Lion in the Lei Shop deftly recaptures a dramatic chapter of American history.

Originally published in 1970 and reissued for a new generation of readers as part of renowned librarian Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust Rediscoveries series, this lyrical novel gives a rarely heard voice to the women and children of Pearl Harbor.

[Jennifer Guthrie · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good read

I enjoyed the subject matter of this book, especially since I have lived in Hawaii and I have family members that were there during the attack on Pearl Harbor. I wish I had asked them more questions about that day and this book sparked questions of perspective for my uncle who was a sailor and his ship had left Hawaii the day before the attack. And I especially wish I had talked to my husband's grandmother who is Japanese American and would tell me stories of hearing the planes coming through the valley.
I found it a little difficult at times to follow the narrative as the author switched from reality to made up dreams that intertwined with occurrences. I appreciated reading the child and then mothers viewpoints of happenings and how they differ.
Overall it was a quick read and valuable to think of those left behind, like my aunt, and what life they endured during g bleak times with limited technology.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought I would be rating this one lower, but I had to rethink it after finishing it. This story is told through the eyes of mom April and 5-year-old daughter Marty. They live on Schofield Barracks in Hawaii at the beginning of WWII. In fact, the book begins on December 7, 1941 with the bombing by the Japanese, and winds up shortly after the war's end. The book starts with Marty's perspective and excellently portrays a young child's mind and the things they do and don't understand. Marty is a real sweetheart, a good girl who occasionally misbehaves. April is pregnant and she and Marty are only able to leave Honolulu on a ship filled with other pregnant women and their children who sail for San Francisco pretty much with the clothes on their backs. I've not read much in this arena of WWII fiction and I realize now how incredibly difficult the war was for wives and children left adrift and not knowing........not knowing. Haunting.

[Becki Basley · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Lion in the Lei Shop by Kaye Starbird (Audiobook Read On Everand app)

Marty Langsmith is five years old live with her mother April and her military father near Pearl Harbor Hawaii. She witnesses the Japanese attack on Them.

Marty has recurring dreams of a lion who inhabilts a lei shop in Hawaii. How the lion is out to destroy her. She dreams this even after their evacuation and life after the war is over.

The book sheds light on a part of the attack on Pearl Harbor that is not talked about when people talk about the the Japanese attack.

We hear about the soliders but Never about the families that also endured the attack. What happened to Them after especially when their men did not come home. This book is told from the view of Marty and her mother.

[Jeanne · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was on a list of books about Hawaii. Marty lives with her parents, April and Lang, on the Big Island during the attack on Pearl Harbor. It alternates between Marty's and April's perspectives. At first I wasn't sure about this but once I got into April's chapters I appreciated the story a lot more. Life on the island was pretty idyllic, great weather all the time, weekends spent at the beach as a family and friends for Marty to play with and then December 7 happened and life changed. I liked April. She went from a pampered military wife to being a leader and handling all kinds of crap thrown at her. Having an uncle who survived Pearl Harbor I liked reading another perspective.

[Tawny · Rating 3 out of 5]

Favorite lines:
1. "It took a long night of darkness to appreciate a day of sun" (12).
2. "Our ambitions shrink with adversity, I thought. Someone who's cold wants only a fire. Someone who's tired wants only a bed. And we who will probably miss many things again tomorrow . . . tonight want only a meal in our stomachs and the planes in the airfields" (135).

[Doris · Rating 5 out of 5]

Deserves 5+++!! Pearl Harbor and WWII told through the eyes of mother and daughter, April and Marty. Marty sees the war through her 6-year-old eyes and experiences while April's memories are told throughthe eyes of a young mother left alone and responsible for her young daughter and pregnant self. Don't miss this one!! The language is beautiful, descriptive and engrossing.

[Kbolt · Rating 2 out of 5]

I expected this to give me more insights on what happened and what was seen from a mother and daughters remembrance of Pearl Harbor. Written in 1970, the telling goes back and forth from what the daughter remembers to what the mother remembers. Thought there would also be more military facts from the husband who was on stationed on the island. Wish I got more from the telling.

[Linda · Rating 2 out of 5]

World War II through the eyes of navy families in Honolulu, who experienced the bombing and the subsequent dislocation. A real downer of a novel, told alternately by April and her daughter Marty. It does end on a positive note, but it doesn't undo the tone.

[Pam · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a wonderful story of a young girl and her mother, evacuated from Pearl Harbor after the bombing and how they remember the events of their lives in that difficult period. It was fascinating reading the same events from the eyes of a child and a woman.

[barbara · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loved this book as it gives another perspective of the effects of wartime on the family. A daughter( not from this story) of the author is a member of my book club so I am eager to hear her thoughts at our next meeting.

[Gail Smith · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderful telling of December 7 in Pearl Harbor, from the perspective of a 5-year old little girl.
This book has been reintroduced by Nancy Pearl in her Book Lust Rediscovered series, and like all of her selections, it is outstanding. Highly recommend for anyone who has a heart.

[Theresa · Rating 2 out of 5]

Not for me. dnf.

[Marie (UK) · Rating 1 out of 5]

apart from the first 20% this was repetitive and boring