BEING MENEHUNE:
MY JOURNAL
Being Menehune, My Journal, by J. Arthur Rath (2011) is a work of historical fiction about Hawaiian Menehune who, combined with their fairy counterparts from around the world, enrich the troubled life of Arthur, a sickly young boy growing up in Hawaii with the turmoil of World War II in the Pacific and personal struggles with race surrounding him. In this novel, avid reading makes the young hero mentally tough, verbally agile, inquisitive, and very sassy, as he watches Hawaii's unfolding throughout history with Kahu, his Menehune mentor, Miki, a Leprechaun, who once was Shakespeare's shadow, Per'fesser, an erudite American Indian Munchkin, Queen Esther of Ancient Persia, one of history's most exotic women, Rising Sun and Ah Soong, Asian pixies, as well as Aiko, a beguiling Japanese girl who has become a Menehune.
The cover illustration depicts a young orchestra directed by Kupuna performing The Menehune Opera. This opera is described in blank verse within the book.
DON'T LOOK BACK:
HAWAIIAN MYTHS MADE NEW
In this one-of-a-kind anthology, old meets new as Hawaii's best writers, including Ian MacMillan, Maxine Hong Kingston, W.S. Merwin, Victoria Kneubuhl, Alan Brennert and more, present favorite myths and legends in surprising contemporary settings. Included is "No Dancing by the Light of the Moon," pages 153 to 164 by J. Arthur Rath.
Alan Alba of Hawaii Book Blog.com writes: "It's always fun to read J. Arthur Rath, he seems to have extraordinary insight into Menehune and I don't think a compilation of contemporary work inspired by Hawaiian legends would be complete without him.
SLICES OF LIFE IN HAWAII
“Writer, reporter, Biographer, poet. These are just a few words to define a man so multifaceted and with such a love for prose that he can fill this book, Slices of Life in Hawaii Volume 1, with over sixty-five short stories and poems about Hawaii’s people, history and culture. This man, J. Arthur Rath III, is born and raised Hawaii—descended from the Lyman Hawaiian Missionary family and Hawaiian king—and has quite the unique writing style!”
--Hawaii Book Blog.com, July 29, 2010
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| Kahu dances with her grandmother's ipu |
EXCERPT
“Our ancestral home is the district of Ka’u and we claim Pele, the Fire Goddess as our ancestor. As members of her Fire Clan, the bones of many generations of our family had been, in Hawaiian tradition, wrapped in tapa and, after proper preparation and ceremony, were tossed into Kilauea Crater for Pele to accept. My grandmother (Mary Kawena Pukui) told me that if Pele did not accept the remains as “family,” the bundle would be thrown out of the crater.”
View Kuhi’s hula auwana “Kilauea” performance at the Merrie Monarch Festival and Kuhi’s hula kahiko.
…“Uncle George Naope wanted focus on her hula kuolo: ’Eh, nobody dance like that anymore!’”
