The Lion in the Lei Shop

Written by Kaye Starbird and Nancy Pearl

Narrated by Nancy Pearl, Tanya Eby and Kate Rudd

Marty Langsmith is only five years old when a strange thunder rolls across the Hawaiian sky and life as she knows it explodes into flames. With her mother, April, and hundreds of other women and children, Marty is evacuated from the ruins of Pearl Harbor and sent into a brave new world overshadowed by uncertainty and grief. Feeling abandoned by her deployed Army officer father in the wake of the attack, Marty is haunted by nightmares of the lion in the lei shop, a creature that’s said to devour happy children. But as the years pass, mother and daughter slowly begin to embrace their new life and make peace with the pain of the past. Spanning the tumultuous war years, The Lion in the Lei Shop deftly recaptures a dramatic chapter of American history.

Originally published in 1970 and reissued for a new generation of readers as part of renowned librarian Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust Rediscoveries series, this lyrical novel gives a rarely heard voice to the women and children of Pearl Harbor.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Brilliance Audio
• Release date: Jun 4, 2013
• ISBN: 9781469276830

Kaye Starbird

Kaye Starbird was born into a distinguished Army family in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. Her poetry and prose have been published in a variety of magazines, including The Atlantic Monthly, The American Mercury, and Good Housekeeping. She is the author of four volumes of poetry for children, as well as the novel Watch Out for Mules.

Reviews for The Lion in the Lei Shop

[maureencean · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

This was a First Reads win. I read a lot of WWII fiction. I agree with Nancy Pearl that this book is worthy of being pulled out of obscurity and re-presented and thank her for it - it is a great program, and I would look other works she chooses. I was glad to read this book as I haven't read any other fiction that deals with first hand experiences of the attack on Pearl Harbor and the time that followed. The main device used by the author is to tell the same stories twice, once from the mother's point of view and once from the daughter's point of view. Sometimes they differ, sometimes they are the same. Most of the time it is in very small details, and even when the difference is more significant, it doesn't make much difference per se. If I were inclined to be critical, I could say it is one way of bringing a shorter story up to full novel length! My favorite parts of the book were at the beginning right after the attack where the various neighborhood women came together in their stengths and weaknesses and despite their differences. I found the later parts of the book, once they had returned to the East to be weaker, and as an editor, I would have worked with the author to further develop some of this aspect prior to publication. It did leave me curious though as to how representative Marty and her cousin Joe's feelings were about their fathers. I think she probably did a pretty good job. Although my mother was an older child at the time, I so wish I had explored this period of her life with her in more detail as her father served a number of years in Europe during the war while I had the opportunity. This book is worth the read.

[busyreadin · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

I think this is the first book I've read that is told from the perspective of the civilians of Pearl Harbor. Told in contrasting chapters by a wife/mother and her 5 year old daughter, this is more a story of relationships than of war. The chapters dealing with the actual bombing are very tense though.

[kikoa_8 · Rating: 3 out of 5 stars]

When I discovered this book, I was so excited. I was born in Queens Hospital in 1942, so to read 'The Lion in the Lei Shop" would give me a more rounded view of what my parents went through. My mother was a nurse and my father relocated from the dust belt in El Reno, Oaklahoma to be a welder in Pearl Harbor. I grew up with stories of the Bombing and got somewhat of an idea from the blacked out letters that they sent out to the Mainland. I am 3/4ths through this book and I still do not know the people portrayed in these pages. There was so much chance to make them full and full of experience. I love a book that when you close it, you are afraid that something will happen before you get back. This is not that book.

[eachurch-1 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A fascinating, and different take on American involvement in World War II. It is told from alternating viewpoints of a mother and daughter who were living outside the Schofield air base when the Japanese attacked Hawaii. Often their recollections of the same event differ dramatically which raises all sorts of questions about the veracity of memory and whose memories are closest to the truth. I'm not a big fan of child narrators, but Starbird does a great job of showing us how Marty sees the world, and how she comes to her understanding of the events that she is living through. The portrayal of her relationship with her father is beautifully nuanced and affecting. One of the things that I really liked about the book is that none of the women are overly heroic. They do their best, and try survive with some semblance of grace. Sometimes they succeed, and sometimes their friends and family members need to hold them up.