These themes will vary! It could be based off of some book mail I just received, pop culture, something personal to me, a headline from the news, a trend I noticed when I was buying books for my library system, etc. I hope you stick around to see all the themes and book recs I come up with!
This Week’s Theme: Celebrate and Uplift Native Hawaiian Voices
This year there have been a LOT more Native Hawaiian voices coming out and I am HERE FOR IT! In this one, the main character is half human half shark and he joins the seventh grade class’s surfing team. There’s a point where he even has the extra row of teeth like a shark LOL I can’t wait to dive into this! I also read that she explored the legend of Nanaue/Shark Man legend, and y’all know how I like to do a deep dive into legends and lore! I can’t wait to read! [This book is MG and came out today!]
I wish y’all had seen me at TLA LMAO I was passing by this book every day and I think I asked every person if I could have it. Y’all know how I am about diverse horror. I NEEDED it. So when I finally did get my hands on it, I read it immediately. I annotated and translated this as I read. I also freaked myself out and vowed to never eat another orange fruit again. I will not be explaining further LOL This was compared to She is a Haunting and I can definitely see that. It goes a bit further into the colonization history and I enjoyed that. I also really liked the resource list left in the Author’s Note. I went on a deep dive and looked up the historical things mentioned. I loved this one and I hope y’all will too! [This is YA and is out today!]
Well, there you go! Here I’m just going to talk about why I grouped these two books together. I hope you enjoyed a look at this small part of the books. For a full synopsis of the book or to add it to your TBR, click the picture and it will take you to their Storygraph. The link on the caption will take you to it’s Goodreads.
Here’s some more Native Hawaiian voices to celebrate and uplift!
**I am not part of the Hawaiian community, but I did run these choices by someone who is! Also, please remember this is not an exhaustive list! In fact, I made a longer list that includes picture books, MG, YA, and adult books that I will post on my library’s website later this month, after they have all been released!
Will you pick up one of these? Have you heard of either of them? Let me know in the comments!