Scroll down for local read-aloud videos and event information!
Six months after we launched our video read-aloud initiative GET CAUGHT READING with community partners Farmers Insurance and the Hawaii State Library System, we found there’s no shortage of booklovers who are excited to share their favorite book excerpt with the world—on-air, online and on social media.
And these volunteers are choosing to do more than share the joy of reading. They also want to add value to listeners’ lives with specific passages they find personally meaningful. In other words, there’s a lot of heart going into this new literacy program.
In fact, one of our citizen readers, Nanette Napoleon, brought her hand to her heart and abruptly stopped reading: “Oh, I’m sorry,” she told our TV studio crew. “I get emotional.” Nanette was reading from an 1893 letter written by Hawaiʻi’s last monarch on her last day as monarch (and quoted in Helena G. Allen’s book). Facing a U.S. overthrow of her government, Queen Liliʻuokalani wrote that she was yielding her authority “to avoid any collision of armed forces and perhaps loss of life.”
A brand-new PBS Hawaiʻi Board Member, Hilo’s Kūhaʻo Zane, quoted from Ka Honua Ola, by his illustrious auntie, Puanani Kanakaʻole Kanahele, in both English and Hawaiian. We hear of an ancestral canoe journey that came ashore at Nihoa, the island of sheer cliffs 120 miles northwest of Niʻihau.
Kamani Kualaʻau, a PBS Hawaiʻi Board Member, found inspiration in Change We Must, authored by singer Emma Veary’s late mother, Nana Veary. There’s a story about Nana’s mother in shallow coastal waters, catching fish by lifting up her muʻumuʻu like a net. She followed the fisherman’s code: Take only what you need, not what you want.
These and scores of other video read-alouds appear between TV programs on our station. You can also view these videos by clicking the icon below.
Playlist
Children at Kauaʻi’s Princeville Public Library’s GET CAUGHT READING event
We also took GET CAUGHT READING on the road by partnering with Hawaiʻi public libraries to host keiki events. We have hosted story times, scavenger hunts and craft-making events. One of the great things that have also come out of it, has been hearing from children, parents and librarians what they love about reading and how they enjoy spreading this happiness to those around them.
