Kahala: Growing Up In Hawaii was awarded the 2014 Independent Publisher Book Awards Gold Medal for Best Regional E-Book -- West of the Mississippi including Australia and New Zealand
Had Milton not used the title, "Paradise Lost" would aptly apply to Laurie Ames Birnsteel's Kahala: Growing Up In Hawaii. Set in Hawaii in the 1950s, the story is told in a series of vignettes describing the author's humorous and poignant attempts to tame her unconventional mother in a very conventional time.
From the author:
I've always loved history, which is why I kept my mother's day-by-day diaries dating back to 1931, as well as my own, begun in 1963. With the help of those diaries, I completed Kahala: Growing Up In Hawaii in 1991, before memoir became popular. When my attempts to get published failed, I set it aside. Fortunately, a series of events led to its publication in 2002. Now twelve years later, I've updated the text throughout and republished it as a second edition.
Kahala, a series of vignettes, is about what life was like in Hawaii in "the good old days," when choices were few, phones were black, detergents were white, televisions were tiny, doors weren't locked, urban sprawl hadn't spread, movies cost a dime, women wore bathing caps, personal lives weren't discussed, and everyone's family was perfect, except mine.