Makauwahi Cave Reserve Tortoises

Had we not gone on the tour, we might have missed the tortoises. Thankfully our tour guide clued us in that the tortoises are used to clear land so native plants can survive. They take the place of a bird that became extinct. And we got to see them!

There were about 20 of them and each one had its own pen. They were very pretty.

I loved the plating on their legs.

We walked past many of the pens.

There was also this beauty.

And we saw two different kinds of lizards. This one had a red throat.

And this blurry picture shows how well this one blended into its surroundings.

Makauwahi Cave Reserve Hike

Our route to the cave reserve took us through the Tree Tunnel, which was a grand gateway, as cited by this website.

We had a short walk from where we parked to the view of the ocean.

And then we took an interpretive hike to get to the Makauwahi Cave. There were many informative signs about the flora.

Our first sighting of Makauwahi Cave came from above. As you can see, it ‘s not as much of a cave as it once was.

We had to crawl through a tunnel (for about four feet) to get on the inside.

Once in, we wandered right into a tour that was just starting and learned that the cave roof collapsed 7000 years ago and formed a lake. From the fossil record in what was the lake comes information about what species were on the island prior to contact.

There’s a bit of cave left and we got to see the patterns the limestone made.

There were also a lot of great spiders hanging out on the native plants, including this one who was going to eat well soon.

Immaculate Conception Cemetery

Having eaten, we still had time to kill before we could check in, so we found a cemetery nearby and drove out for a look.

I love cemeteries in general and my last trip to a Hawaiian cemetery on Lanai had many interesting things to take in. This was was no different.

Flowers and garlands.

Tidy and not-tidy gravestones

And excellent offerings.

There was also this cacti. I wouldn’t wish the vandalism, but it’s interesting how it scars.

Poor Man’s First Class and Our First Hawaiian Meal

We won the airplane seat lottery and had an empty middle seat all the way to Kauai. I recently heard this described as “poor man’s first class” and a truer phrase has never been spoken. When we left Portland, it was in the 30s and I got cold and was cold for the whole flight, hence my jacket blanket.

Once we arrived in Hawaii, we got to bypass the long line because we had bracelets (a thing we almost didn’t have because I never saw any notification, nor discovered any information about bracelets in my pre-trip research) and I was starving. So we found a place and I ordered a Loco Moco, which was a hamburger patty, on top of rice and topped with a fried egg and a lot of gravy.

Given that it was my only meal of the day, it hit the spot. Matt got fried shrimp.

Books Read in February 2022

Picture Books

I Hop
Joe Cepeda
Read for Librarian Book Group

I thought for a minute that we were going to lose track of what happened with the cheese and bread, but things righted themselves by the end.

The People Remember
Zoboi and Wise

A history of Black people in the US that also illustrates the seven principles of Kwanza. One of my favorite picture books from this award season.

I Sang You Down from the Stars
Tasha Spillett-Sumner and Michaela Goade
Read for Librarian Book Group

A mother prepares for her first child in this swirlingly illustrated book.

The Most Beautiful Story
Brynjulf Jung Tjønn, Oyvind Torseter
Read for Librarian Book Group

God bless the Batchelder award for hooking me up with Scandinavian picture books about death. Great use of line and color.

The Passover Guest
Susan Kusel and Sean Rubin

Depression-era Washington D.C. is the setting for this very pretty Passover story.

In the Meadow of Fantasies
Hadi Mohammadi, Nooshin Safakhoo
Read for Librarian Book Group

Super odd story but in a charming way. This Bachelder committee seemed to like spare lines with drops of color, as this art style is similar to the Most Beautiful Story. (I know they are supposed to focus on the words due to the translation thing, but I’m betting the illustrations also make a difference.)

Granddad’s Camper
Harry Woodgate
Read for Librarian Book Group

Bold bright illustrations help tell the story of Granddad and Gramps’s travels in their camper.

Coffee Rabbit Snowdrop Lost
Betina Birkjær, Anna Margrethe Kjærgaard, Sinéad Quirke Køngerskov
Read for Librarian Book Group

Stump spends a lot of time with his grandparents. He tracks his grandfather losing words. Good dementia resources in the back.

Horizon
Daniel W. Vandever, Corey Begay
Read for Librarian Book Group

Wordless picture book that offers a lot of (too much?) guidance of how to interpret everything.

Middle Grade

The Barefoot Dreams of Petra Luna
Alda P. Dobbs
Read for Librarian Book Group

An insight into a refugee event in 1913 during the Mexican Revolution. Captures hope and despair of an other story at the US-Mexican border.

A Bird Will Soar
Alison Green Meyers
Read for Librarian Book Group

Alex loves birds, the dog Ray, his mother, and Emmett, George and Aunt Nancy in this tome of a middle grade novel.

Amina’s Song
Hena Khan
Read for Librarian Book Group

The conundrum of how to talk about a country you love—in this case Pakistan—when the people around you only associate it with bad things.

This is a sequel—it took me a bit to realize that fact—and had some gaps because of it’s sequel status.

Linked
Gordon Korman
Read for Librarian Book Group

This short book balances many characters and tells the story of a small Colorado town and what happens at the middle school when someone paints a swastika on the school wall. An excellent example of middle grade literature.

Temple Alley Summer
Sachiko Kashiwaba and Miho Satake. Translated by Avery Udagawa
Read for Librarian Book Group

A unique story about a home-based summer mystery. It’s weird in a delightful way from the first page to the last. The story in the story throws the pacing off, but I didn’t mind so much. Sadly, a lot of the translation was pretty flat.

Young Adult

Home is Not a Country
Safia Elhillo
Read for Librarian Book Group

Novel in verse about a young woman who grieves the country she wasn’t raised in and eventually learns the truth about her past.

The Words in My Hands
Asphyxia
Read for Librarian Book Group

A YA book with tons of illustrations! Such a treat! Permaculture as a plot point! So great! A really interesting Deaf protagonist! Illustrations of the Auslan fingerspelling alphabet. So very different than ASL! I loved so many things about this book!

The Summer of Lost Letters
Hannah Reynolds
Read for Librarian Book Group

Pretty much my sweet spot: summer, letters, history. Though I did wonder how many hours Abby worked at that bookstore. Unlike me, she only had to plan around work once during the course of the book. This was a very good read about identity when you don’t know about your family because of the holocaust.

I Must Betray You
Ruta Sepetys

Very vivid description (one might say it’s Sepetyan description) of the last two months of Ceaușescu’s regime. Unfortunately, Sepetys’s story is undermined by many one-word or short-sentence paragraphs and also by the future narrator butting into the story which cuts the tension considerably.

The Darkness Outside Us
Eliot Schrefer
Read for Librarian Book Group

People who have seen the movie Moon will recognize an early plot point, but no matter. The story of Ambrose and Kodiak is sweeping and fascinating and hopeful.

People who haven’t see the movie Moon should rectify that, stat.

Where I Belong
Marcia Argueta Mickelson
Read for Librarian Book Group

The way Millie’s life gets complex fast when her mother’s boss calls out her family as good immigrants felt real and also humbling. This is a really great story of white people trying to do the right thing and the complicated feelings on both sides. Recommended.

Yolk
Mary H.K. Choi

Jayne is a mess and we get to spend an entire book in her mess. This novel really evokes the 20-something lost feeling. (It’s also not really a YA novel, but whatever.)

Fifteen Hundred Miles from the Sun
Jonny Garza Villa
Read for Librarian Book Group

It seems like a good idea to write a novel that covers a school year from start to finish, but it’s hard to get the arcs right. A school year has 3–4 novels in it. What usually happens, and did with this book, is that the novel gets draggy. At one point I said aloud, “Oh thank god, we’re skipping ahead to March.”

This was a good read from an own-voices perspective. It was just a sloggy read.

How Moon Fuentez Fell in Love with the Universe
Raquel Vasquez Gilliland
Read for Librarian Book Group

So many great things! Fame adjacent! Getting out from a sister’s shadow! Overcoming terrible family situation! It was also a really-great-finding-love-despite-tons-of-negative-self-image-feelings story.

This might have been my favorite among the award winners this year.

Young Nonfiction

Classified: The Secret Career of Mary Golda Ross, Cherokee Aerospace Engineer
Traci Sorell and Natasha Donovan
Read for Librarian Book Group

A clearly written picture book history of Mary Golda Ross. Very digestible information about a woman with whom I was not familiar.

Becoming Miss Navajo
Jolyana Begay-Krapo
Read for Librarian Book Group

This feels a bit like the 4-H posters at the fair, but I did enjoy reading about a pageant I had no idea existed. I would have liked some captions on the photos.

Dear Mr. Dickins
Churrun Stancliffe
Read for Librarian Book Group

Writing your favorite author can make a difference! Also, the author’s note clued me in that the statutum de Judaismo in England was from 1275–1846! 1846!! I had no idea.

A Face for Picasso: Coming of Age with Crouzon Syndrome
Ariel Henley
Read for Librarian Book Group

Henley describes growing up with Crouzon syndrome and how it affected her body (the many major surgeries) and her psyche (the teasing, the way her face shifted with each surgery) and her education. A hard read, but an important one.

The Great Stink: How Joseph Bazalgette Solved London’s Poop Pollution Problem
Colleen Paeff
Read for Librarian Book Group

Lots of interesting information about London and poop that will satisfy the young set’s scatalogical interest. Plus some science. The illustrations were bursting with life.

We are Still Here
Traci Sorrell & Lessac
Read for Librarian Book Group

12 topics relevant to Native Americans (and all Americans) are introduced in a presentation-like format. Not unlike the 4-H posters at the fair. The extensive timeline and other back matter information was in a font too small for this reader to struggle through.

Child of the Flower Song People
Gloria Amescua, Duncan Tonatiuh
Read for Librarian Book Group

So rarely do I get the story of the people who modeled for the famous paintings. This was a treat. Unfortunately, there were no page numbers, so it was hard to cross reference the notes with the illustrations they discussed.

Summertime Sleepers: Animals that Estivate
Melissa Stewart and Sarah Brannen
Read for Librarian Book Group

Fun information about animals that sleep away the summers. I liked the contrast of black and white line drawings on the full-color pages.

SKS: Smile

The nice orange color made this easy to find in the pile of postcards I need to put on the website.

Sara wonders if the message sounds less patriarchal because it comes from her. She knows that I, like many women, HATE being told by men to smile.

Sara goes on to explain she wanted to send some orangey cheer.

The last line is also fun: And, like a true academic, I used all my space to discuss the patriarchy. Ha!

Orangey cheer accomplished!