Honolulu Weekly

There’s an often-repeated quotation about every story having already been told, and how human nature can be reduced to what’s expressed in Anna Karenina, Bleak House, The Sound and the Fury, To Kill a Mockingbird and A Wrinkle in Time.

It’s an idea that appeals to that part of us that loves simply summed-up truths. But of course it isn’t true. At least, the founder of One Voice Publications, Kim Hunter, doesn’t think so.

One Voice Publications is a multi-lingual literacy effort aimed at growing a love of reading in people who don’t often find stories that resonate with them.

“I was working with incarcerated kids in Hawaii,” says Hunter. “They would often ask me for something to read that was real, about somebody who was making it. They weren’t able to read at the high school level but they wanted something inspirational and there wasn’t much out there. So my goal was to produce bilingual books in languages of Hawaii and the Pacific.”

One Voice Publications’ “People Like Me” series–the first of which was released last month–tells the true, bilingual stories of local people who overcome adversity to achieve success.

The first book in the series, Ua Wehe ‘Ia Ke Alaula, or Breaking Chains, is about Wendy Peltier, a Waianae High School student who overcame parental abandonment, drug addiction and poverty. It highlights many of the challenges Peltier faced in foster care as a teenager.

“For youth who are dealing with these problems to see that somebody in their neighborhood or in the state that they’re from can make it, makes them realize that it’s more than possible to do anything they want to,” says Peltier, who is now 23, and a former president of the Hawaii Foster Youth Coalition. “The first part of making it is surviving. If you can live through it, you’re already making it. You can start from there.”

Breaking Chains was written in English by Wilma Friesema, who also works with children in Hawaii’s foster care system. Hunter says he seeks authors and illustrators who are previously unpublished, to give community members an opportunity to explore artistic interests. Friesema says she got in touch with Hunter after he placed an ad about One Voice Publications on craigslist, and that although publishing her first book was exciting, she’s most concerned with what One Voice Publications provides to an underrepresented segment of the community.

“He told me about his vision for the company and it was very moving,” says Friesema. “He talked about working with incarcerated youth and there just wasn’t any literature available that spoke to their experience but was also at a level that they could handle.”

Friesema’s 78-page story about Peltier is written at a third-grade reading level and printed with side-by-side translations from Hawaiian to English by translator Jessica Kahealani Lono. Forthcoming books in the “People Like Me” series–10 of which are scheduled to be released in 2010–will feature a slew of Pacific island languages.

“Marshalese, Chuukese, Samoan, Tongan,” says Hunter. “You can reach so many more people with two languages than you can with one.”

Hunter also aims to reach people with real themes that are often ignored.

“These are issues of drugs and alcohol, abandonment, abuse,” Hunter says. “The issues that are raised in this story are very real to the people who live in Hawaii and elsewhere. I went to an elementary school to talk about the book, and was talking to the principal and I said, ‘I know there are mature themes in this book,’ and she just smiled and said ‘I know so many children who are dealing with these issues.’”

For now, One Voice Publications mostly accepts special orders for its books (Bookends in Kailua sells copies, too). Already, one church rasied $3,000 to distribute hundreds of copies to literacy programs and schools across Oahu, and a large portion of proceeds from sales go to a charitable program chosen by the book’s subject. The series’ writers and illustrators receive royalties, while 10 percent of proceeds benefit traditional dance in the culture that’s highlighted in each book.

Hunter hopes that eventually the Department of Education might consider adding his series to its standard curriculum.

“If the book is in Chuukese and someone is new to Hawaii from Chuuk, and they’re in the schools and they’re struggling with language, it could be really helpful to have a book that’s being read by the other students in the class,” says Hunter. “I just imagine a third grader seeing that there are stories in his or her home language, stories about the people who they know, and walking a little taller because of that.”