In Nikki Van De Car's dazzling blend of myth and magic, The Invisible Wild, a Hawaiian teen who can see menehune endeavors to stop construction that endangers the forest spirits' sacred home.
Part-Hawaiian Emma Arruda, 16, and her family are busy preparing their Big Island home for her sister's marriage to her girlfriend. Their chores, however, seem to be undone overnight--a cleaned garage is re-cluttered, a bathroom retiled crookedly. Emma, who has grown to believe that she imagined speaking to spirits as a child, is the one to catch the culprit: a strong, three-foot-tall man--a menehune.
The being of legend leads her to a plot of 25 "miraculously pristine," "gorgeous acres" recently purchased by a developer. A bulldozer has already leveled many of its 'ōhi'a trees and hāpu'u (giant ferns). The menehune's community lives inside a lava tube under all the destruction: "We have a sacred duty here," Koa, the menehune, explains. "We protect this forest, and we cannot leave it." Staying, however, will mean their deaths.
Emma is determined to stop the construction. A teenage boy, Hilo, tasked with making amends to the land after harming an 'ōhi'a tree, becomes her partner in crime. When Hilo's vandalization of the excavation equipment leads nowhere, though, Emma attempts to convince the menehune community to abandon a duty (kuleana) she doesn't understand.
Emma's forthright first-person narrative exudes a love for her Big Island home. She bristles at tourists who ask to "see the lava flowing"--a disaster that devastated neighborhoods--and she resents how she and other Hawaiians need such tourists to survive. The teen connects deeply with the forest: she shares the story (mo'olelo) of the naupaka blossom with Hilo, and volunteers to plant trees that drive out invasive plants on Mauna Kea. Emma's inextinguishable desire to help the menehune is part of her deep celebration of her Hawaiian identity, as well as her fear that a tradition and way of life is being erased.
Van De Car's wondrous and magical YA debut cherishes Hawai'i's everyday, developing a stunning atmosphere through creation chants, a pālila's "bubbly warble," mist "like the breath of an unseen dragon," black lava roadsides, and heaps of haupia (a coconut dessert). The Invisible Wild is altogether enthralling, hopeful, and great fun. --Samantha Zaboski, freelance editor and reviewer
Shelf Talker: A Hawaiian teen who sees forest spirits must stop the destruction of a menehune community's home in this lushly backdropped and tenderly wrought YA adventure rooted in legend.