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Healing Water: A Hawaiian Story

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Things will never be the same for thirteen-year-old Pia, now that he has leprosy. He will be sent off to the island of Molokai to die with others who have the same condition, ripped from the arms of his ohana, his family. No more comfort from his mother and sister, nor from the only father figure he's ever known, Kamaka.

Since even Kamaka has shunned him, and because the island of outcasts is a place with no law, Pia quickly learns to harden his heart, and to do what he must to survive for as long as he can.

This is the story of the neglect and abandonment of people, the loss of a beloved culture, and the strength of a young boy facing extreme obstacles. But most of all, this is a story of forgiveness and hope.

Joyce Moyer Hostetter, author of Blue, tells another historical tale of an epidemic that once clutched the very souls of the inflicted and spun their lives out of control. She shows the strength and determination that can rise from those tossed into the worst imaginable conditions and she doesn't hide the ugliness that unfolds with it. It's a balanced story that explores a specific time and place with obvious accuracy and integrity, and it's woven around the personal experiences of one brave but lost boy.

Strong writing and a uniquely captivating story!

Reviewed by: Julie M. Prince

I just finished reading Healing Water. This is a wonderful story of a sad time in Hawaii's history. Joyce Hostetter's talent in weaving history into a captivating account of a young man's journey is spellbinding. I could feel Pia's gut wrenching landing on Moloka'i after being separatef forever from his family (please excuse the backward `okina). I could smell the dampness of the fauna and salt air and appreciate the view from Diamond Head after Pia and Kamaka raced to the top.
Joyce's writing provides the reader with a true sense and meaning of aloha and how it can never be truly lost. Just buried for a time - as a means of survival.
Young and old alike will not only enjoy Pia's story but also learn how one man can make a difference in the lives of many.
As a middle school teacher, Healing Water will be on the top of my list for Historical Fiction. Steph

Imagine being fourteen and diagnosed with a deadly disease. Now imagine being torn away from the loving arms of your family and sent alone to an unknown island to live with others who share your disease, where you must learn how to survive by whatever means necessary, knowing there is no hope that you will be able to leave. This is the setting of Healing Water, a novel based on the real leper colony of Molokai in the late 1800s.

Filled with bitter anger over the abandonment by his beloved friend Kamaka, Pia allows himself to turn to the seamier side of the island's inhabitants. How Pia struggles to make peace with himself makes this a truly gripping novel, and one I can highly recommend to readers of all ages. I am now inspired to learn more of this lonely colony and its inhabitants.

Thank you to the Historical Novel Society for an advance review copy of this terrific young adult novel.

Leprosy just isn't the hot topic of children's historical fiction it could be. I mean, walk up to a kid and ask them what their primary associations with leprosy (today called Hansen's Disease) are and if they mention anything it'll probably have to involve Jesus in some way. Historical fiction for kids based around diseases crop up, but somehow this topic has remained fairly untouched. I mean, yellow fever was in Laurie Halse Anderson's "Fever 1793", and smallpox is written about with a fair amount of frequency. And of course there was the topic of polio in Joyce Moyer Hostetter's, "Blue" a couple years ago. Hostetter now turns her gaze to another disease, but with her primary focus on the island of Moloka'i and its Kalaupapa peninsula around the late 1800s. In a year when historical fiction for kids has been dominated by Jim Crow, Civil War, and World War II titles, it's a relief to read a book as simultaneously engrossing and well researched as "Healing Water". The kind of realistic fiction that'll suck in the young readers the minute they start turning the pages.

Pia got off to a bad start, no question. If he hadn't gotten angry with his fellow passengers on the boat that stole him away from his family and sent him to the leper colony of Moloka'i it might have been okay. If he hadn't run away that first day and missed his initial rations it might have been okay. If he hadn't aligned himself with the island's most corrupt leader, if he hadn't done the man's bidding, if he hadn't turned off his own heart and conscience . . . . but he did. And why? Because the man he admired, the man who had helped raise him and love him, his best friend and father figure, Kamaka, betrayed him. When Pia got the first signs of leprosy, Kamaka disappeared from his life and it takes all the boy's will to forget him. Now Kamaka has reentered his life unexpectedly, and Pia must figure out whether or not to forgive this man's betrayal or to seek his protection on this strangely lawless island.

To place a story within the context of history isn't as straightforward as it sounds. To make it come together as a coherant tale you need to do what "Healing Water" has done here. This title works because if you set out to write a book about a historical moment and the main character walks around thinking, "Gee, what a significant time I live in," you have yourself a pretty dull piece of work. "Healing Water", on the other hand, focuses on something a lot of kids can identify with; Friendship, betrayal, loneliness, and moral complicity. Ostensibly the focus of the piece is on Father Damien deVeuster, the man who spent his life dedicated to making a better life for the people sequestered on Moloka'i. But the relationships in this story are the glue.

It has never been easier to identify with a character either. When Pia gets angry with Kamaka you get angry right alongside him. You want to see that guy pay and pay hard. Heck, you may even think that Pia is letting Kamaka off too easily at times. I know that one of the themes of this book is forgiveness and what it means to forgive someone who has hurt you and feels bad about their own weaknesses. Still... the vindictive part of me wouldn't have minded if Kamaka suffered one little kick more.

So the story works, but so too does the writing. The fact that Hostetter can write a great descriptive sentence doesn't hurt matters any. I'm a sucker for lines like, "The ship pulled me away from our home, ripping me like bark from a tree." Or when Pia is in the hospital and is visited by Kamaka's tutu and she finds it hard to talk to him. "But Tutu, giver of hugs and playful swats on the bottom, could not speak without touching me. And touching she was not supposed to do."

Sometimes I'll start to read a work of historical fiction for kids and suddenly I'll think to myself, "Uh-oh. There better be some backmatter to look through here." It's a crapshoot if I find what I'm looking for at the book's end. More often than not I'll find a one page Author's Note with two or three websites included. Sometimes nothing will be there at all and I'll return to my reading, growling inaudibly. And sometimes I'll turn to the back and find a six-page historical note, a Timeline, notes that discuss things like the pronunciation of Hawaiian words, a Glossary, and a list of Resources including adult texts, suggested reading for kids, audiovisual references, websites, and places to visit to learn more. Honestly, it's pretty rare to find 14 pages worth of reference text in a middle grade children's novel. Would that it were more common. A reader knows to trust their author when they see that a little research has gone down.

Generally, when children read books in which a government agency has torn average citizens away from their loved ones and/or their home, it either involves the Jewish people during WWII or the American internment camps from the same time. Tearing away people from their families if they have leprosy is not unlike the Japanese-American interments if only because in both situations the government was acting out of fear. And fear, generally, is not a smart way to go about making decisions about people's lives. Fear is the omnipresent force at work in "Healing Water" too. Pia fears for his survival, fears the man he works for, and each fear is reliant upon the other. "Healing Water" offers an escape from that trap and that fear. I wouldn't call it an overtly religious book, but what it has to say about forgiving others as well as ourselves is a lesson worth reading and learning. Informative, touching, and hard to remove from your mind. A lesson in living life without pain.

This is a profoundly beautiful book. There isn't a single crack in its wholeness--in the wonderful weaving of Pia's story with the history of the leprosy colony on Molokai. This is what historical fiction should be--Pia's totally understandable feelings of betrayal and hate drive his choices, drive his story, all wonderfully set against the very real backdrop of the pain and loneliness on the island. Exquisite.

I am a fan of Joyce Moyer Hostetter. After reading Blue and now Healing Water, I know I can count on her for a great read. She has the ability to make me care about her characters. I know it's a great book when the author leaves me wanting more, which Hostetter has done again, this time in a Hawaiian leper colony. Not only do I care for these characters, but I find myself identifying with many of them and their various struggles, joys, and sorrows. Who among us doesn't share Pia's (Healing Water's protagonist) feelings of rejection, fear, shame, and bitterness? Without giving away the ending, I will say that it is richly satisfying. In addition, when the story ends, Hostetter provides a rich trove of facts about leprosy then and now.