1 of 1 copy available
"Hand to readers of the 'Rick Riordan Presents' series, and tell them this is even better."—School Library Journal, Starred Review
On the surface, thirteen-year-old Kaya leads a charmed life. She lives in beautiful, beachy Lihiwai. She has ride-or-die best friends. She’s ultrasmart and killing it at school. She even works with a super-cute boy at her parents’ restaurant.
But she also has anxiety—serious anxiety, the kind that makes you scratch and pick—and she’s always had bad luck around the ocean. It’s hard to enjoy Hawaiian beaches when you’ve almost drowned more than once.
But as stranger and stranger things happen to Kaya around the sea, she realizes that—wanted or not—she has a special connection to it. Waves rise when she’s angry. Surf smooths when she’s calm. Fish come when she calls them. And when she learns the truth about her family and her divine ancestor, Mazu, she knows that she will need to connect with her most difficult emotions ASAP—or her potent powers may become dangerous to the people she loves.
Kaya of the Ocean is an exciting, fresh, and beautiful middle-grade fantasy about embracing who you really are. This heartfelt adventure of sun, surf, and sand touches on mental health, the immigrant experience, and the complexities of growing up.
A Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection
An ABA Indies Introduce Selection
"[A] fantastical debut."—Kirkus Reviews
-
Creators
-
Publisher
-
Release date
January 7, 2025 -
Formats
-
Kindle Book
-
OverDrive Read
- ISBN: 9780823462049
-
EPUB ebook
- ISBN: 9780823462049
- File size: 2532 KB
-
-
Languages
- English
-
Reviews
-
December 1, 2024
An anxious teen navigates her fear of the ocean. Thirteen-year-old Kaya knows that, living in Hawaii, it's ridiculous to try to avoid the water, but she's certain the ocean is trying to drown her. So when she finally agrees to go surfing, she isn't surprised when things go wrong. Kaya is certain that she's responsible for her friend Taiyo's near drowning, but she also believes she might have saved him afterward. Her persistent anxiety ratchets up as her aunt and moody cousin visit from New York City, and she experiences more instances of water acting strangely in her presence. Interwoven snippets--set in China's Fujian province in 1629, San Francisco in 1876, and China's Jiangsu province in 1949--tell the stories of other girls in harrowing situations. This sweeping narrative will keep readers eager to learn what happens to Kaya, the child of Mandarin-speaking Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants, and her friends. Unfortunately, the latter part of the novel is plagued by pacing issues, and toward the end, each revelation only raises more unresolved questions. The intergenerational connections are insufficiently explored, and ultimately, the power of the mysterious water goddess feels incidental rather than satisfying. Readers will appreciate the frank discussion of anxiety and welcome a contemporary novel set on Maui, but they may be deterred by the stilted dialogue. Those familiar with Chinese communities in Hawaii will also notice gaps in the cultural context. A promising beginning ends in a wipeout.(Fantasy. 8-12)COPYRIGHT(2024) Kirkus Reviews, ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.
-
October 21, 2024
Huang explores one anxious tween’s relationship with the sea and her ancestry in this fantastical debut. Chinese and Taiwanese American 13-year-old Kaya Song, who lives in the Hawaiian surf town of Lihiwai, grapples with hydrophobia following multiple near drownings. Her fear also exacerbates her “never-ending anxiety,” which she tries to alleviate via scratching (“I wore my hair down and pulled on a long‑sleeve top to hide the new scratches I had anxiously scraped into my skin”). But when her best friends, native Hawaiian Iolana and blond-haired Naomi, pull Kaya away from her beloved books and persuade her to go surfing, Kaya inexplicably saves someone from drowning. This becomes the first of many strange new interactions with the water. Kaya keeps her worsening anxiety and recent development with the ocean hidden from her parents, but when her aunt and cousin visit from N.Y.C. for “Christmas in Hawaii,” Kaya learns about the water goddess Mazu and her connection to Kaya’s family history. While the premise is intriguing, the integration of fantastical elements and flashbacks relating the Song family history throughout Kaya’s more grounded challenges managing her anxiety is somewhat clumsy. Ages 8–12. Agents: Laura Cameron and Amanda Orozco, Trans-
atlantic Literary. -
Starred review from January 10, 2025
Gr 5 Up-A promising debut fantasy novel. Kaya, 13, has been dealing with a lot. Her anxiety is getting worse and her parents, Chinese and Taiwanese immigrants to Hawaii, are busy running a struggling restaurant. She's developed a nervous skin-picking habit that she tries to hide from her best friends. When strange things start happening whenever Kaya is around water, she learns that she may be a descendant of a water goddess. Will she be able to control her new power before disaster strikes? Huang has written an excellent story that doesn't attempt to fit an entire hero's journey into 250 pages. Instead, readers stay with Kaya on the island as she first discovers her powers and learns to accept them. The characters are diverse without being tokenized, including native Hawaiians and other Asian and Pacific Islander characters. The relationship between Kaya and her bully of a cousin, Anne, feels painfully realistic. Kaya's reasonable fear of the water and the symptoms of her anxiety blur together sometimes, which can feel like a messy but not unrealistic representation of what it's like to have an anxiety disorder. VERDICT This compelling novel will leave readers hoping for a future sequel. Hand to readers of the "Rick Riordan Presents" series, and tell them this is even better.-Jeri Murphy
Copyright 2025 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
-