When Bill is sent to Honolulu to attend Kamehameha Schools at age fourteen, his peaceful days on Kaua'i described in Kaua'i Kids in Peace and War came to an end. The airplane brought him to a confusing city in 1944, filled with soldiers and sailors and a school requiring military uniforms and discipline. The shoes hurt his feet and the ROTC uniform scratches, and his country bumpkin ways are derided. On Kaua'i the soldiers were friendly, but in Honolulu the racism between the military and locals shocked him. Newspapers teach him about world politics and locals talk about "rap the haole."...

When a sugar baron kicks John Tana off his farmland on Maui in the mid-1800s, the orphan Hawaiian seventeen-year-old feels the shock of the dramatic change in land control in Hawai'i. Western capitalism and private property clash with the communal lifestyle and sharing of the common people. Many Hawaiians lost their lands because the planters convinced a king of the need for individual farmlands for Hawaiians but, in reality, intended to make it so complicated few would do so. This led to the vast plantations on the islands and destitution for Hawaiians. John's story reveals the path of the...