Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits

Ancient Hawaiians lived in a world where all of nature was alive with the spirits of their ancestors. These aumakua have lived on through the ages as family guardians and take on many natural forms, thus linking many Hawaiians to the animals, plants, and natural phenomena of their island home. Individuals have a reciprocal relationship with their guardian spirits and offer worship and sacrifice in return for protection, inspiration, and guidance.

Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits is told in words and pictures by award-winning artist Caren Loebel-Fried. The ancient legends are brought to life in sixty beautiful block prints, many vibrantly colored, and narrated in a lively “read-aloud” style, just as storytellers of old may have told them hundreds of years ago. Notes are included, reflecting the careful and extensive research done for this volume at the Bishop Museum Library and Archives in Honolulu and at the American Museum of Natural History in New York. A short section on the process of creating the block prints that illustrate the book is also included.

The matching poster of “A Chance Meeting with the Iiwi” measures 22 x 28 inches.

• Caren Loebel-Fried, Author

  Caren Loebel-Fried is an award-winning author and artist from Volcano, Hawai‘i. She has written and illustrated several previous storybooks, including Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits, A Perfect Day for an Albatross, and Legend of the Gourd, all of which showcase the ancient art of block printing. Her books have won the American Folklore Society’s Aesop Prize for children’s folklore and the Hawai‘i Book Publishers Association’s Ka Palapala Po‘okela awards for excellence.

• Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits is unique indeed as it retells legends in an entirely new way. Perhaps most noteworthy of all are the 60 woodcuts, some in color, that are spread throughout the book. This work deserves the attention of Hawaiian collectors who savor the spiritual aspects of life in the islands and the role it still plays in the lives of many.
  —The Molokai Dispatch
• Caren Loebel-Fried is an artist and writer whose show at the Volcano Art Center in 2000 has now been turned into a book ... The well-made volume consists of nine illustrated retellings of Hawaiian mo'olelo (legends) about protective gods, divided into five chapters, one for each of them. Her medium is block prints, very stylized, clean and appealing, and the stories are told in a very readable ... style.
  —The Honolulu Advertiser
• Volcano artist Loebel-Fried, who both 'retells' these tales and created the way-cool block prints that illustrate this handsome book, delves into the fascinating legends of Hawaiian aumakua, or creatures who watch over us.
  —Honolulu Star Bulletin