Children Books and Folktales of Hawaii: This Ain't Your Three Little Bears

While some children had the gingerbread man, I had the musubi man. While others had the princess and the pea, I had the princess and the iso peanut. While kids across America played cops and robbers or cowboys and indians, I played Karate or Samurai training. I would drape my grandmother's handmade blanket around my neck; take out my plastic sword that I got at the 50th state fair, and run around the house terrorizing my family.

The tales of my youth were both traditional and non-traditional. On one side, I read stories about samurai children or about adventurous farmers, and on the non-traditional side, I read stories about a quirky, pickled side dish and one about a tofu sumo wrestler who falls in love with a tuna fish.

At the ripe age of 23, I look back at these books with fond memories, and I wonder how these books have impacted the way in which I live in my life. I've definitely absorbed the tales of my youth, and each day I breathe my own life into them as the years pass.

One of the first children's book I remember reading is "Taro and the Sea Princess". It's an Okinawan folktale that was written and published by Gladys Shiroma with the drawings done by Alison Shiroma Adams. This book was sold to my mother in the summer of 1995 at the Okinawan festival in Kapiolani park.

Of all the children books I've read as a child, perhaps this one remained with me for so long because of the novelty of the work. It's hard enough finding children books with Asian characters in it, let alone one written in English that talks about Okinawan folktales.

Summary

There is a farmer named Taro who lives on Minna Island near the village of Motobu. I have no idea where that is because the Okinawan archipelago is vast and very complicated. But as all Okinawan folktales go, he's a poor sweet potato farmer.

Then a princess who is for some reason tossing a fruit ball back and forth under water accidentally tosses it too far and it lands on shore. Just like the little mermaid, she is intrigued by the surface world, but this princess has legs so she goes on an adventure. There are monkeys in a tree that steal the ball and then drop it to steal Taro's lunch.

Taro meets the princess and he drops her ball and they decide to eat it.

She goes back home. A few months pass and a new fruit ball grows where Taro and the princess ate. Taro and his friends call it "watermelon" because it is shaped like a melon and comes from the water.

The princess is sick for some reason and needs the liver of a monkey to live. Then this turtle volunteers to get the monkey's liver for the princess. He goes to shore and sees monkeys. He tries to trick one of them and gets so far as to have one of them riding on his back in the ocean. But the turtle lets the secret slip, and the monkey tricks the turtle into going back to shore.

As soon as they are back on shore, the monkey runs back to the tree and tells the other monkeys what the turtle said about his liver. They all pelt the turtle with rocks and apples. The turtle "runs" away to the ocean.

Taro finds the turtle and helps him into the boat. The turtle thanks Taro and declares that the princess is sick. Taro gets his habu sake and they go down to rescue the princess. (I love how the cure to all sickness in Okinawan folktales, is some alcohol distilled from a snake).

Everything is great and Taro and the princess get to play fruit ball as much as they want.

Although the tale of Momotaro the peach boy, like Taro and the Sea Princess, is not a Hawaiian folktale, it is nonetheless earned notoriety on the Islands of Hawaii. Children--at least children of Japanese descent--have grown up with tales of Momotaro just as other children across America are familiar with Cinderella or The three little bears.

Even in the country of its origin, this tale is considered a classic of children's literature. And here in Hawaii the peach boy is considered a children's classic as well.

How amazing it is to wonder how the transmission of the stories from father to child and grandfather to grandchild has kept this tale centered in Hawaii. Of course, with today's globalized society--such transmission of children stories from other cultures is as easy as going on the Internet to do some research, but nonetheless, the importance of Momotaro for the "Japanese-Americans" living in Hawaii is the continuation of their culture and to enforce cultural beliefs of: bravery, filial duty, and honor.

Summary

There is an old man and an old woman who have no children. One day a peach floats by the old woman as she's doing the laundry in the river. She wades into the river and picks up the peach. She takes it home and waits for her husband to come back from the forest. He is surprised and they have a delightful meal. He cuts open the peach and a baby boy pops out.

The boy grows up and starts to help around the house. His father then trains him in the way of the samurai and sends him to a school to train. One day the boy confronts his family about the ogres that terrorize his village. He dresses up in samurai gear and prepares to go to battle. His mother makes him kibidango ( or as my mom refers to it chichidango) for his journey. On the way to the ogre castle, he meets a dog, a monkey, and a pheasant who all agree to join Momotaro on his journey as long as they can have a bite of his kbidango. They get to the castle and beat the living daylights out of the monsters and return home victorious.

A cross between thumbelina and samurai adventures, this book's novelty is that the protagonist is the physical size of a thumb, but has the courage of a full grown man. Strikingly similar to the tale of Momotaro: there are two old people who want a baby and they get one in the most strangest way. This story focuses more on the development of Issunboshi as he grows up, learning to deal with his size but never compromising his spirit.

The story of Issunboshi really lives in the shadow of Momotaro, and often children in Hawaii will get the two mixed up because the story lines are so close. While Momotaro is more appealing to younger audiences, the tale of Issunboshi is a lot more complicated because it deals with love between a full sized woman and a little man that is suddenly corrected by a magical mallet that turns our protagonist into a full size man.

Summary

An old woman and an old man live in a village together but have no children. They go to a Buddhist shrine and pray for a child--even if he is no bigger than their thumb. One day the woman gives birth to a baby boy, but wait, he's no bigger than her thumb.

Issunboshi grows up well but never gets bigger than the size of a thumb. He gets along with the other children of the village and they often play with him. One day he says he wants to go into the main city to look for a lord to serve under. His parents prepare a sword and a boat for him. On his way to the capital he attacked by rough seas, a toad, and a dragonfly. He manages to make his way to the city and stands outside the gate of the lord's house, screaming at the top of his lungs that he'd like to serve in this house.

Someone so happened to pass by the gate and opened it to see Issunboshi. He is taken inside and assigned bodyguard duty to the daughter named Miyuki. The two grow close and both are saddened when Miyuki must go to the temple to prepare for her marriage. Two ogres attack Miyuki's convoy and Issunboshi boldly protects her. Stabbing one ogre in the eye and the other in the throat.

One ogre drops his magical mallet and Miyuki and Issunboshi use it to grant his wish of being a full sized man. With his wish granted, Miyuki and Issunboshi get married and live happily ever after.

While the story "Miss Takuan" is certainly not a Japanese folktale, its reference to the beloved pickled side dish in Japanese cuisine is a hint that the author is at least familiar with Japanese folktales. "Miss Takuan" is a sassy and encouraging tale where the protagonist is not an adventurous farmer or samurai, but a young "girl" living in Hawaii, getting stuck in her own adventures and dealing with her uniqueness on her own.

A great break from both western and eastern tales for children, this book preaches uniqueness and praises children for being "off-graded". A great read for me because it encouraged me to accept and love the things that made me different from the other kids, and a great leap in the growing and changing atmosphere of Children books in Hawaii.

This book was copyrighted in 1989, and it wouldn't be until 1995 when Lisa Matsumoto would unleash her book "How the B-52 cockroach learned how to fly" that we would see an inspiring, unique "local" book with great art and a special story line.

Summary

There is a young takuan (pickled radish) who was "off-grade". She loved guavas and liked to swim in the river with rainbow fishes. She was good at Orchestra and P.E. in school and rode her bike with her violin strapped to the back of her bike. She loved nature and especially loved smelling pikakes, garndeias, and white ginger in grandpa's garden. Through perseverance and staing true to herself, she became Miss. Takuan.

The same author of the book "Miss Takuan" also published a book "Neal Tofu Luvs Teedah Tuna". It's about what it feels like to be in love, or at least, what the the author thinks love should feel like. The use of Japanese themed food, this time being tofu and tuna, is a cute adage to her earlier theme of using a takuan as a character. When comparing the illustration, this book is not as "bright and colorful" as the first book, but the style is nonetheless uninhibited by the laws of the page. Often times the brush strokes exceed the margins and seem to expand to the very lengths of the pages, and this matches the author's point that love is a feeling unbound and without rules.

Although not as impressive as "Miss Takuan", this book's theme deals with a more "grown-up" topic of attraction and the feeling of being in love. And a more Hawaii oriented theme is that the tuna and the tofu are obviously from different backgrounds both "racially and ethnically"--a phenomenon that is recurrent in Hawaii, seeing as many of us are "mixed" people, products of different races and cultures coming together not in a "melting pot" but rather like a first birthday party where all the goodies are out on the display to eat and enjoy.

Summary

There is a low ranking sumo wrestler who is in love with a tuna. There isn't really a linear plot line for this book, but it more just shows the inner feelings of Neal exploding onto each page. It really is simply a book about being in love