Finding Home, a Hawaiian Petrel’s Journey

Eleven-year-old Makani Kealoha Morton adores ‘ua‘u, Hawaiian petrels. She grew up marveling at the seabird’s magical evening sky-dance and murmurs from their underground burrows. Living over the ocean, gliding thousands of miles on the wind to wherever food was abundant, they returned yearly to their burrows in the Hawaiian Islands. Over thousands of years, their guano helped to make Hawaiʻi fertile and habitable for humans. Yet humans brought predators and environmental changes that caused numbers to plummet to near extinction.

Makani’s biologist mom and her team devise a plan to save the seabirds. Ten chicks are raised within a protected place. The chicks leave for the sea one by one—but Makani’s favorite is very late to fledge. Makani worries: Will this young petrel survive at sea? Will she return to the refuge to raise her own young? Will the plan to save the ‘ua‘u work? By the story’s end, Makani finds her own way to make a difference for the seabirds she loves so dearly.

Based on the true story of and the people working to save them, Finding Home, a Hawaiian Petrel’s Journey is filled with Caren Loebel-Fried’s colorful block prints, dynamic drawings, and maps. Following the story, a back section provides scientific facts on the habitat and lifestyle of ‘ua‘u and their connection to Hawaiian culture and history. The book’s middle-grade content includes place-based learning that incorporates natural science, wildlife conservation biology, literature, and art. Appealing to all ages, this hopeful, empowering story brings awareness to the threats humans have brought upon seabirds, and inspires us to find ways we can help them survive and thrive.