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 ʻuaʻu numbers to plummet to near extinction. Makani’s biologist mom and her team devise a plan to save the seabirds. Ten ʻuaʻu 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 dear