Captain Hawaii - Hardcover

Arkin, Anthony Dana

3.55

20 ratings by Goodreads

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060215089 ISBN 13: 9780060215088

Publisher: Harpercollins Childrens Books, 1994

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While vacationing in Hawaii, sixteen-year-old Arron becomes involved with a tour guide, his beautiful daughter, and a ruthless developer who seeks an ancient secret hidden on the island of Kauai

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From School Library Journal:

Grade 7-10-Arron Pendleton, 16, flies to the Hawaiian island of Kauai with his family for a resort vacation. Bored, he signs up for a cruise with Zodiac Pirate Tours and finds himself in an Indiana Jones-type adventure. Booby traps, spiders, secret caves, kidnappings, curses, explosions, sharks, ESP, buried treasure, attack dogs, and menehunes (Hawaii's legendary "little people") fill Arkin's book. A pretty (but competent) girl, her bumbling sea-captain father, a philosophical Japanese cook, a Hawaiian sorceress, an evil tycoon with delusions of grandeur, a crazy English scientist, and assorted goons comprise the stereotyped cast. Not surprisingly, Captain Hawaii is completely unrealistic. It doesn't succeed as fantasy, either, due to Arron's gee-whiz first-person narrative; an overabundance of slang and limp humor; predictable characters; and plot twists that verge on the ridiculous. For high-class adventure, stick with Gary Paulsen.
Ann W. Moore, Guilderland Public Library, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Publishers Weekly:

Arron Pendleton, the 15-year-old narrator, may worship Indiana Jones, but he knows of adventure only through movies and books. When Arron realizes that his family vacation to Hawaii is not moving beyond reading magazines by the hotel pool, he seeks out the oddball Captain Dan, who gives "Pirate Tours" of Kanuai, and then happens onto a web of intrigue, violence and magic worthy of his idol. The usual elements of the boy's adventure tale are here, albeit with a few twists: an attractive, bikini-clad girl (this one is also smart and independent); an evil capitalist (here, a crazy theme-park entrepreneur); some grossness (a severed hand covered with green spiders), and a deus ex machina (however, when "hundreds, thousands" of monsters, or "Menehune," arrive to save characters about to be tossed in a lava pit, it is undisguisedly absurd). Arkin entertains the reader with cinematic scenes (Arron and his girl roped together back to back) and snappy sitcom-ish dialogue. Ages 11-14.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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