The last princess: The story of Princess Kaiulani of Hawaii”
By: Fay Stanley
Illustrated by: Diane Stanley
Four Winds Press; New York
Copy Right: 1991
(Non-fiction Biography)
The story of Princess Kaiulani was a very interesting one. I was unfamiliar with Hawaiian history, but this book explained a lot. Princess Kaiulani’s uncle was the King. He had two sisters, her mother and her aunt. Her mother died when she was eleven, but on her death bed foretold Kaiulani’s future. She predicted that she would travel far from her people, never marry and never be the queen. All that her mother predicted came to pass. She went to school in England, studied to be a Queen, yet her government was overthrown by greedy tradesmen. Although she made a plea to the American government for help in restoring her family to the crown, it never came to pass. She lived long enough to see the Americans form an annex with Hawaii. She was never pleased with how this affected her people and died at the age of twenty-two. She was the last Princess, the last in the family’s blood line.
This was an interesting story, one I am sure most people are unaware of. It would be a good book for students doing a biography on the Island. As for a text to self connection I could find one in her sense of family. Family unity was very important to her and is something I think most people can relate to. I wasn’t able to make a text to text connection, perhaps which will come as I continue to read. As for a text to world connection I think it can be found all around us. We live in such a tremulous world, where leaders are being overthrown or killed monthly. This puts a different face on such actions. In the future when I hear of an uprising this story will be in the back of my head.
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