Kaye Starbird

I first heard about The Lion in the Lei Shop from reading Nancy Pearl’s Book Lust in which this was one of the books that she called forgotten treasures. This was a great read in which a mother and young daughter’s alternating perspectives tell the story of Pearl Harbor and the resulting war years. April, the mother and Marty, the child, along with the father, Lang were a military family that were stationed at Hawaii. And although there are differences in each one’s experiences, they show more both show how the trauma they endured affected them.

The moment the Japanese started the air raid on that early Sunday morning, Lang ensured his “girls” were as safe as possible and left to join the other soldiers. Other than quick visits he had basically left for the war and April and Marty were on their own. Marty is told a story by a neighborhood boy about a man-eating lion being trapped in a nearby vacant story. Somehow this story takes root in the little girl’s mind and gets mixed up with the absence of her father. And in the years that follow, the lion and her father’s absence becomes a reoccurring nightmare.

Strong descriptive writing sprinkled with bits of humor and pathos make The Lion in the Lei Shop a memorable read. This is a personal story told in an interesting and different way as the author, Kaye Starbird, explores how those who saw their loved ones go off to war managed to survive the separation and loss. show less

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 show more 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. show less

Disclosure: I received a free copy of The Lion in the Lei Shop by Kaye Starbird from Amazon Publishing via GoodReads First Reads.

The Lion in the Lei Shop tells the moving story of a military family whose lives are transformed by the air raids on Pearl Harbor and the events that follow. Of the two viewpoints used to tell the story, the young daughter, Marty, is the more compelling narrator, while her mother April's parts of the tale come across cold and matter-of-fact at times. It is perhaps show more unnecessary for the mother to repeatedly discredit her daughter's memories of certain events, since the separate narratives of the same incidents clearly establish already that each character remembers things rather differently. Because the two tellings overlap more so than intertwine, the plot does not move along as smoothly as it might, and the second telling does not always add much in terms of perspective. The tiny details, from food to clothes to personal relationships with the loveably quirky cast of minor characters, help make this novel as vividly real as a memoir.

Fans of The Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet will also enjoy The Lion in the Lei Shop. show less

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.