 |
| Lehua Parker |
Today
we welcome Lehua Parker, author of the exciting Niuhi Shark Saga. The latest
book in the series, “One Shark, No Swim,” continues the adventures of a young
man named Zader and his mysterious connection to the water. Lehua sits down
with me to talk about her new book, which is out now.
How is Zader different than the last time
we saw him in One Boy, No Water, the
first book in the Niuhi Shark Saga?
After
his experience standing in seawater during the fight and after what he sees
when Leia dives into the ocean at the end of One Boy, No Water, Zader begins to question things he always took
for granted. He begins to test Uncle Kahana, and when Uncle Kahana isn’t forthcoming,
Zader starts to hide things he’s feeling and doing. In One Shark, No Swim Zader is restless, more aggressive, and hungry
like a shark.
Have you found it’s easier or more
challenging to get deeper into the series? Why?
In
my head, the whole series is one long story. Book 1 introduced all the
characters and explained how things began. Now that the readers are on board, we’re
paddling out into the deep water of how things change. It’s a lot more fun to
write.
Do you feel any differently about Zader’s
world now that you’ve had more experience with it? Have you discovered more
about it?
Zader’s
world is part of a larger writing universe I think of as Lauele Town. There are
other stories about characters we’ve met in the Niuhi Shark Saga that I’d like
to write one day. Most of them are not for MG/YA readers. When I write a novel,
I have the major beats in my head, but nothing remotely like a detailed
outline. At the computer I think, “Okay. In this next scene Zader needs to meet
his art teacher. What’s he doing?” And like magic I see the scene unfold with
Zader walking up to the beach pavilion where Char Siu and some girls are
mimicking the newest dance craze. And then Zader says he hates K-Pop. Those
kinds of discoveries keep me writing.
What are the challenges of writing for a
MG/YA audience?
Through
the series I’ve realized that for my audience a lot of the tension and conflict
that I felt was in the story wasn’t on the page yet. Middle grade readers are
just beginning to understand symbolism, metaphor, and allegory. They don’t make
connections between things that older, more experienced readers do. I’ve
learned to write in neon and hold up big signs saying, “Pay attention to this.
You may be quizzed on it later.”
The new book, One Shark, No Swim, has less Hawaiian Pidgin English in it than the
first edition of One Boy, No Water, which
is also being released in a second edition with less Pidgin. How did that
decision come about?
There
were a couple of assumptions in my marketing plan that didn’t work out the way
I planned.
I
had the idea that the series would gain readers in Hawaii first, then move
across the Pacific to California, Nevada, Washington, Utah—places where a lot
of ex-pat islanders live. If I lived in Hawaii or had gone with an islander
publisher, this probably would’ve been the way it worked. But living in Utah
with a publisher based in Utah as well, it was tough to get books on Hawaiian bookstore
shelves. With middle grade readers and their parents it’s all about being able
to pick up a book before buying it. I learned eBook services aren’t the best
distribution system for an audience without smart phones, iPads, or Kindles
yet.
When
I first conceived of the series, I wanted to write books that I would’ve loved
as a kid growing up in Hawaii. In literature, there are almost no characters
that looked, talked, and acted like the people I knew. I also wanted to write
something that would appeal to island boys who didn’t like reading. I chose to
write a lot of the dialogue in a kind of Pidgin-lite thinking non-native speakers could still follow the action
and that islanders would automatically switch Anglicized words to their proper
Pidgin ones.
Adult
readers have no problem getting into the Pidgin groove. New or reluctant
readers—the very audience I was aiming for—struggle with what looks like broken
English to them. Mainland schools throw their hands up. They like it, but don’t
know what to do with it. So I basically had a series written using
unconventional language for an audience that didn’t read books and a
distribution system that couldn’t get it in their hands—even if they decided to
look.
Something
had to change.
That’s
when I realized the series needed a Pidgin-ectomy and wrote
One Shark, No Swim with far less Pidgin
and Hawaiian words. It needed to appeal to readers who liked to read first and
island kids second. When I was writing
One Shark, No Swim I approached Jolly Fish Press with the idea of doing a
second edition of
One Boy, No Water. When
JFP inked a new distribution deal with IPG, they came back and said the time
was right. Since all of their titles would have to be re-formatted, it made
sense to do the second edition now.
What’s next for Zader and his ‘ohana?
In
book 3, tentatively titled One Fight, No
Fist, Zader’s human world begins to collapse. He meets his sister and
biological mother and begins to understand what’s at risk and why he was hidden
with his adopted family. Readers will get to know the Niuhi side of the story.
If you could say one thing to everyone who
picks up one of the books in the Niuhi Shark Saga, what would it be?
Thank
you! Mahalo for picking it up. Between the covers you’ll find adventure, a
loving and supportive family, danger, excitement, and all the trials and
tribulations of growing up different.
You’ll meet Zader, a boy who’s allergic to water, see how islanders live, and
maybe take a little piece of Hawaii home with you.
Lehua
Parker’s Biography
Lehua
Parker is originally from Hawaii and a graduate of The
Kamehameha Schools and Brigham Young University. In addition to writing
award-winning short fiction, poetry, and plays, she is the author of the
Pacific literature MG/YA series the Niuhi Shark Saga published by Jolly Fish
Press. One Boy, No Water and One Shark, No Swim are available now. Book
3, One Fight, No Fist will be
published in 2014.
So far Lehua
has been a live television director, a school teacher, a courseware manager, an
instructional designer, a sports coach, a theater critic, a SCUBA instructor, a
playwright, a web designer, a book editor, a mother, and a wife. She currently
lives in Utah with her husband, two children, three cats, two dogs, six horses,
and assorted chickens. During the snowy Utah winters she dreams about the
beach.
Connect
with Lehua Parker
One Boy, No Water
11
year old Alexander Kaonakai Westin—Zader for short—is allergic to water. One
drop on his skin sears like white-hot lava. Too bad a lifetime of carrying an
umbrella and staying away from the beach isn’t the answer, especially when his
popular almost twin brother Jay looks destined to become the next Hawaiian surfing
sensation.
But
avoiding water is just the tip of Zader’s troubles. Eating raw seafood and rare
meat gives him strange dreams about a young girl in a red cape and nightmares
about a man with too many teeth. There’s also the school bullies who want to
make Zader their personal punching bag, the pressure of getting into Ridgemont
Academy, and the mysterious yearly presents from his birth family that nobody
talks about.
It’s
enough to drive Zader crazy, especially when he suspects old Uncle Kahana and ‘Ilima
know a secret that explains his unusual biological quirks. After all, they were
the ones who found him newborn and abandoned on a reef and brought him to the
Westins to adopt. Uncle Kahana swears Zader is ‘ohana—family—by blood as well
as adoption. Too bad he’s not saying
more.
When
Jay quits surfing after a shark scare, Zader decides it’s time to stop hiding
in the shadows and start searching for answers.
Growing
up adopted in Hawai‘i just got a little weirder.
One Boy, No Water
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Goodreads
One Shark, No Swim
There’s
something bugging adopted Zader Westin, something more troubling than his water
allergies where one drop on his skin burns like hot lava. It’s bigger than his
new obsession with knives, designing the new murals for the pavilion with Mr.
Halpert, or dealing with Char Siu’s Lauele Girlz scotch tape makeover. Zader
can’t stop thinking about a dream, the dream that might not have been a dream
where Lē‘ia called
him brother then jumped into the ocean and turned into a shark.
Zader’s got a
lot of questions, not the least being why he’s hungry all the time, restless at
night, and why he feels a constant itch on the back of his neck. It’s making
him feel like teri chicken on a pūpū platter, but Zader doesn’t want to think
about chicken, not with his growing compulsion to slip it down his throat—raw.
With Jay busy
at surf camp and Uncle Kahana pretending nothing’s happening, Zader’s left
alone to figure things out, including why someone—something—is stalking him before it’s too late.
Summer in
Lauele Town, Hawaii just got a little more interesting.
One Shark, No
Swim:
Amazon
Barnes & Noble
Goodreads
