I loved this book! I was totally taken in by the histories, stories and experiences of the members and missionaries of Hawaii. It provides an in-depth look at their struggles, their successes, and much, much more!

This book really helped me on all my rides in Hawaii. Best of all, the book had sections on all 6 visitable main islands. The maps and trail descriptions were always right on... don't ride in the islands without this!

For anyone familiar with mushroom gathering in temperate zones, Hawaii would seem to offer scant picking . . . until you pick up MUSHROOMS OF HAWAII. Unbelievable! The mushrooms in Hawaii are harder to find, yes. Some are very different from what you're likely to encounter on the mainland. Some are old friends: morels. Others are well known, colorful enemies: Amanita muscaria. All are beautifully illustrated. Even if you aren't a hunter of wild mushrooms, the photographs alone will have you entranced. And there's a lot else in these pages as well, from recipes, to descriptions of the places where the elusive fungi grow. The bibliography is excellent, providing plenty of further reading for the aficionado and testimony to the careful research that went into this work. Is there anything wrong with it? I do have one complaint. It's much too nice to pack on a field trip. Maybe the authors will come out soon with a small field guide to take along. That way I can leave this volume safe at home where I can go over those great photos at my leisure and not worry about what might happen to the book when stuffed into a knapsack.

The author took the traditional Gingerbread Story, changed it to reflect Hawaiian life, and came up with a delightful fairytale.

If you can, GET AHOLD OF THIS BOOK! It is one of the most absoulute greatest ones I've ever read. It all starts when Cindy goes to hawaii with her mother, stepfather and stepsister. What happens is, this little man with glasses keeps showing up all over. Excitement grows when she meets handsome young Lani, a Hawaiian boy. As Cindy's relationship with Lani grows, so does the mystery! But you will have to read the book for yourself to find the answer to this mystery!

David Young was born and raised in Hawai`i by a kama`aina family with a keen appreciation for both the Hawaiian culture and Hawaii's natural environment. It is obvious from both his introduction and from the book itself that Na Mea Makamae is a work of love and respect. Most of the material in Young's book has been taken from other published material. As a result, Hawaiian Treasures is primarily a compilation of knowledge from other sources. However, Young openly acknowledges that and he provides very complete notes about his sources for each chapter and an excellent bibliography.

One could easily dismiss Young's book as just another "me too" collection of things Hawaiian - but that would be a BIG mistake.

Books about collections of artifacts can be terribly boring and bear a close resemblance to reading a catalog, but Young's beautiful book is about as far away from that category as you can get. He has assembled a varied and amazingly representative collection of Hawaiian artifacts, took high quality photographs of them and then added rich commentary to weave a totally captivating book. As he explains in the introduction, "artifacts are representations of a culture." Young has chosen a cross-section of Hawaiian artifacts that clearly portrays both the richness of artistic achievement and the simultaneous practicality with which Hawaiians dealt with their environment. Many of the artifacts that he has chosen are from the Kailua-Kona area, which makes this book especially interesting to Big Island residents or visitors.

One of the unique features of Hawaiian Treasures that elevates it to "coffee table" status (in addition to the photographs) is that many of the chapters are preceded by semi-transparent vellum pages which are printed with an historical photograph or drawing, or a Hawaiian kapa or fish-netting pattern. The effect is stunning. In the case of the natural materials, you can almost feel the textures! Chapters include such subjects as: early collectors, food, shelter, trees, textiles, clothing, travel, fishing, recreation, musical instruments, weapons, religion, ornaments, etc.

Young uses a very nice combination of photographs (many historical), dictionary-like text entries and interview material to present a surprisingly complete, if brief, overview of the Hawaiian culture. In only 109 pages, he does an excellent job of portraying the complexity, richness and beauty of early Hawaiian life. I've read a lot about Hawai`i, but I learned a lot of new things here (and read about some locations that I have to snoop around now). There is some especially interesting material on the uses of lava caves that I haven't seen before. The only significant way that I think the book might be improved would be to lengthen the descriptions and discussions about some of the artifacts. But then, I suspect that one of Young's purposes in creating this book was to whet people's appetites for more information about the Hawaiians' amazing culture. Hawaiian Treasurers is beautiful, quite remarkable and definitely belongs in everyone's Hawaiian library.

I recently had the opportunity to read "'O Au No Keia: Voice's From Hawaii's Mahu and Transgender Community". As someone with no transgender feelings, it was a glimpse into a part of our community that I knew very little about. Its a very real book, written by the transgendered people themselves. Mr. Matzner interviewed a number of transgendered people on O'ahu, edited what they had wrote and then gave them a chance to review, correct and add to what they had said. So rather than being a book about transgender people, its really a book by transgendered people.

Their stories were real and often touching. Their feelings and lives, while outwardly very different than what I've ever experienced, were so real and human that it would be almost impossible to not understand and feel for them. They openly share both the good and bad parts of the lives in an effort to get those of us outside the transgender community to see how their stories could be anyone's story. They succeed. Its not an cheap book (almost [$$$]) but its worth every penny if you want to better understand our friends in the trangender community.

I recently read and used the 93' version of the book. This is a great hiking manual for the island of Oahu. The author does such a great job of describing each step of your hike that you can't make a mistake. In the reading you can visualize what the hikes will entail before deside which one you would like to take. Whether you are a beginner or an experienced hiker this book will be of much value to you. The revision should have valuable information about certain changes to the trails listed as well as some additions. May the 8 people who lost thier lives at Sacred Falls in early 1999 rest in peace and my deepest regards to thier families.

Ferguson and Turnbull have provided both academia and Hawai'i with a book that can be compared to none. They use semiotic and Foucauldean analyses to "unearth" the military's strategies of power in Hawai'i along with colonialism's reconstruction of the Native body among others. I highly recommend this book to anyone interested in Hawai'i, the military, the military in Hawai'i, or the politics of Hawai'i.

Hazama and Komeiji have written a very compelling history of the early Japanese immigrants and their posterity in Hawai'i. In addition to discussing the experiences and attitudes towards Japanese on the Hawai'ian Islands, Hazama and Komeiji show the history between Japan and the United States, Japan and Hawai'i, and Hawai'i and the United States, raising compelling questions of loyalty, ethnicity and patriotism. A highly recommended resource for any student or history lover.