ABSTRACT
In this article, we categorize three trends in contemporary Hawaiʻi folk literature for children: literature that retells or adapts ancient Hawaiian mythology; literature that celebrates the local pan-ethnic identity that formed during Hawaiʻi’s sugar plantation era; and literature that reproduces a paradisiacal Hawaiʻi, which is the central trope of Hawaiʻi’s tourism industry. We use the above categories to contextualize the literature; to illustrate the literature’s relationship to Hawaiʻi’s economic, political, and cultural development; and, finally, to clarify the relationship between this literature and a Hawaiʻi that is sustainable for its children and for all.
