Until now, when you looked for books for the very young learner, the pages have been filled with mainland images — big cities, Midwestern farms and seasons. The message of familiarity is lost on a Hawaii kindergartener looking at a page describing walking to school in the snow. The 40-book set of "Island Readers" has changed all that.
Benjamin "Buddy" Bess arrived in Hawaii in the late 1970s, saw the need to localize educational tools and opened Bess Press. To fulfill his dream of "Island Readers" books for early readers, he had to wait until his baby daughter was ready to assist.
Growing up, Sarah Bess DeLuca was surrounded by books. With a publisher dad and her mom, Ann Rayson, a professor, now retired, at University of Hawaii at Manoa, learning, reading and exploring ideas was a family passion and pastime.
Fast-forward through DeLuca’s life: a master’s degree in education and teaching from UH; marriage to David DeLuca, director of publishing at Bess Press; and a job teaching pre-kindergarten to first grade at Hanahau‘oli School. It all added up to a moment of revelation.
"One day I walked into my dad’s office and said, ‘You know those books you’ve wanted? I think I can do it — I can write something that will engage the imaginations of the local kids,’" she said.
Reviewing some mainland early learning materials, she agreed that surf had to replace snow, Spam musubi was the local version of the hot dog, and the ocean held a wealth of science lessons.
"We didn’t use pidgin, just local references that would make sense to children living on an island, far from the U.S. mainland," she said.
The concept, created by David DeLuca, is a page of actual photos of recognizable island places with illustrated characters and items superimposed on the image. Sarah DeLuca wrote the books, drawings are by Ann Corum and the design by Joseph Abad.
Each of the four sets includes 10 books that have what Sarah DeLuca calls predictable, repetitive patterns. "Who Has the Slippers" is a giggle for adults and kids.
Sarah DeLuca says the language, along with the illustrations, helps the beginning reader predict what happens next without needing to decode the words. She suggests that an adult can read the set with the child at least once or twice, setting the pattern so that the child can read the book independently.
The 40-book developmental reading series features increasingly difficult language that helps keiki build a vocabulary of sight words, words that early readers can recognize instantly.
The DeLucas have tried to re-create island life: Mango, bananas and other island fruits at the farmers markets; ocean adventures; a luau; Tutu’s house; poi; and whales all come to life in phonetic elements and illustrations.
The second set focuses on consonant-vowel-consonant words with short vowels, beginning when pals Jan the cat and Sam the crab take a nap on a mat on a sandy beach.
Set three teaches "silent e" words and more complex consonant blends, while set four progresses to suffixes and two-syllable words.
The team felt they had to "kid test" the books.
"We brought students in to help with the editing. On one page we mentioned a stingray, coral and an eel. The student went right to what we missed — the eel. It was back to the drawing board to add the eel and make sure nothing else was missing," Sarah DeLuca said. They also tested the books with teachers and parents, who often looked up from pages, wondering out loud, "How did I learn that when I was a kid?"
"The beauty of the books is the refresher course adults receive when they sit with the young reader," she said.
The books have already found a place in classrooms at Punahou School, Head Start and many public schools.
Individual sets ($29.95 each) or the 40-book set ($120) can be ordered from besspress.com with no shipping cost. Check out the books at the Bess Press tent at the Hawaii Book & Music Festival, 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday and Sunday at the Frank F. Fasi Civic Grounds, or view them online at bess press.com/island-readers.
