[ISLE PAGES]
BY BURL BURLINGAME / STAR-BULLETIN
New releases from
Hawaii authorsLOUIS: A LIFE OF ROBERT LOUIS STEVENSON, Philip Callow (Ivan R. Dee, $27.50)
This in-depth biography of novelist R.L. Stevenson -- nicknamed "Tusitala" or "storyteller" during his last years in Samoa -- reads like a novel itself, full of adventure and intrigue and interesting characters. Stevenson, always one step ahead of death by consumption, spent his life fleeing his past in Scotland, seeking warmth, boundless oceans and guileless friendship. After he spent his entire fortune on a trip to the South Seas, he found what he was looking for in the Pacific. This included an extended stay in Hawaii, where he became a friend and confidant of the "extraordinary" King Kalakaua, and where he finished his masterpiece "The Master of Ballantrae." He also became friends with the young Princess Kaiulani, who was half-Scots herself. A poem he wrote about her ends "But our Scots island is far away / Shall glitter with unwonted day / And cast for once their tempests by / To smile in Kaiulani's eye." There's also a wonderful photograph of Stevenson, rail-thin and barefoot, exultantly standing on the bowsprit of a sailing ship dashing through the open sea, living the life he had only written about. Author Callow is a novelist himself, and has written a number of other literary biographies.
PANIOLO PETE AND THE WILD PUA'A, Joy Mitsu Au, illustrations by Christine Joy Pratt (Island Heritage, $8.99)
Pete and his shaggy horse Pilikia are supposed to carry food back and forth through the wild forest, except that a ferocious pig stands in their way. Boy and horse do the smart thing and co-opt the pig. Charming story has shades of "Little Red Riding Hood," and the engraved art by Pratt is delightful.
PLANTS IN HAWAIIAN MEDICINE, Beatrice Krauss (Bess Press, $12.95 paperback, $22.95 hardcover)
The late Beatrice Krauss was a noted ethnobotanist in Hawaii who helped bring native plants and medicines into the modern age of science without losing track of their cultural cachet. She spent her life gathering both plants and data, and one of the flowers she produced is this classic work, her last book. Krauss used plain language to describe 30 plants and their medicinal and cultural uses by early Hawaiians. The book is well-illustrated by artist Martha Noyes, who spent two years working with Krauss before the scientist passed away in 1998 at the age of 94.
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