Publisher Description
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.
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“Very well narrated
by Tanya Eby, Kate Rudd, and Nancy Pearl…This story is appropriate for all ages
as it provides insight into what it was like when the war first began for the
United States.”
—
SoundCommentary.com
About 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.
About the Narrators
Tanya Eby is a novelist and an audiobook narrator who has earned several AudioFile Earphones Awards and been nominated for the Audie Award. She has a BA degree in English language and literature and an MFA in creative writing from the University of Southern Maine.
Kate Rudd, actress and Earphones Award–winning narrator, has appeared in several independent films and shorts, as well as in multiple episodes of the television show Perks. As an audiobook narrator she has been a finalist for the prestigious Audie Award for best narration.
Nancy Pearl is known as “America’s Librarian.” She speaks about the pleasures of reading at library conferences and to literacy organizations and community groups throughout the world. She hosts a monthly television show, Book Lust with Nancy Pearl, and comments on books regularly on NPR’s Morning Edition. She won the 2021 Lifetime Achievement Award from the National Book Foundation. Among her many other honors are the 2004 Women’s National Book Association Award, the 2011 Librarian of the Year Award from Library Journal, and the 2011 Lifetime Achievement Award from the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association. She received a master’s degree in library science in 1967 from the University of Michigan and an MA degree in history from Oklahoma State University in 1977.