Query Letter
When her grandmother dances, Lani sees. She sees a girl, like herself, dancing on the beach, speaking with sharks, learning the movements of the palms, and she knows that the hulas she’s danced her whole life about Pele, The Lady of Fire, are all wrong.
Pele’s been promised to the volcano, because she was the strongest, but it’s been so long, hundreds of years, and her sisters have all been released from their duties. Pele remains bound to the fire because of lies, passed on from kumu to student, mother to daughter, generation to generation, and she needs someone to tell the truth and set her free. She reaches out to Lani, and helps her see, but for Lani, dancing the truth is heresy.
If Lani dances The First Hula the way it truly happened, and does it at the festival where the lies have been spawned, Pele can break free. But Lani has a chance to be Miss Lehua, to win independence and the future in dance she’s always wanted. Will she dishonor her kumu and her hula sisters by dancing the truth? And if she doesn’t, will Pele become the vengeful goddess of the ancient myths, and take from her the one person she can’t lose, just like she did to Lani’s grandmother? Or perhaps the one who has held back the volcano for so long, will just give up, and let go.
The Forbidden Hula, a YA manuscript that re-imagines the ancient Hawaiian myths of Pele, the goddess of the volcano is complete at 88,000 words. It was inspired by my daughters’ years of dancing hula. I am a member of SCBWI and a moderator on their forum. I also teach writing to a fabulous group of teens.
First 250 Words
In the old days, when the islands of Hawaii were young, the magic of creation still lay thick upon them. And it was wild. It hung in the rocky crevices and treetops like a fog, with the fog. It rushed with the lava. It needed to be controlled. Already the mountains twisted themselves into volcanoes, ready to destroy. Already the people of the islands retreated farther in and higher up and looked with fear upon nature as it gave birth to itself, over, and over, and over. They pleaded for help. They looked to their chiefs.
Kanehoalani was not the greatest chief, but he saw the magic that lingered in the world, and he felt his responsibility. He would tame the island. He would absorb the magic into his own soul. No, the Creator said. He could not hold back the volcano. Only his daughter Pele, who stirred the poi pot, who spoke to the sharks, who learned the movements of the palms could become The Lady of Fire. She would save her people.
Kane wept.
***
“Watch those shoulders!” Lani called over the ukelele music.
Lani’s job was to get this roomful of little girls to swing their hips and keep their shoulders still — basic beginning hula. But they weren’t having much luck. They looked more like defective dashboard dolls than the spirit of aloha. Lani stopped the music on her ipod.
“Ok, girls, watch me. What do I do first?”
Lani put her hands on her hips
