"WRITTEN IN THE SKY" By Matthew Kaopio; Mutual, paper, $9.95

After a 1994 diving accident left him a quadriplegic, Matthew Kaopio did some of his rehabilitation at Ala Moana Beach Park, where his writer's eyes and ears took note of the park's underground residents — homeless people, drug abusers, mentally ill wanderers and runaways who sleep beneath its trees, bathe in its bathrooms and scrounge food in its trash cans.

What he absorbed there of both the beauty and the harsh edge of Honolulu married in his imagination with his knowledge of Hawaiian culture. The result is this moving novella about a homeless teenage boy, 'Ikauikalani.

The boy has lost everything, it seems, but is sustained by his memories, guidance that comes to him in dreams and other spirit forms, and by his own resilient character. Rootless after the death of his beloved grandmother, he subsists on found pennies and free food samples and sleeps under a bridge with a centipede for a bed companion. Threatened by a gang of punks, he is befriended by a man who calls himself simply "Hawaiian." Though their acquaintance is of tragically short duration, Hawaiian leaves 'Ikau with a valuable gift: the journal he jokingly calls "my brain." The writings lead 'Ikau to yet another friend, and to a deeper knowledge of himself.

In 'Ikau, Kaupio has created a likable and interesting character whose story will likely appeal to hard-to-reach young readers. Especially appealing is the way 'Ikau's personality and the action of the book maintain a balance between tough reality and a warm hope for the future. In harsh circumstances, 'Ikau still can savor the early morning air or a cleansing ocean dip. Though treated badly by some, he extends himself to a woman lost in schizophrenia.

This book, Kaopio's second, is an adaptation of his master's thesis in Pacific island studies. With his eye for detail and ear for dialogue, this is a writer to watch.

"WEB OF ISLANDS: A HAWAI'I PACIFIC NOVEL" by John Griffin; XLibris, paper, $19.54

As this novel by retired Advertiser editorial page editor John Griffin comes to a close, it is the wee hours of New Year's Day 2000, and writer Tony O'Donovan is sitting with his young wife in the aftermath of a millennium celebration, listening to "Honolulu City Lights" on the radio and thinking happy thoughts about his family, but sad ones about the future of Hawai'i.

He realizes that he's less sure about things than he was as a younger man, but he knows this: One way to make a woman happy is to dance with her when she asks you to. And so this choppy, awkward historical novel closes with Tony dancing across the lanai with the lights of Waikiki twinkling below.

It's a fitting ending. O'Donohue and his somewhat stereotypical friends — the Japanese 101st veteran/politico, the Chinese restaurateur with a penchant for gambling, the patrician missionary-descendant publisher, the radical poli-sci professor — are members of the fortunate generation who, for better or for worse, helped to build modern Hawai'i and now are left realizing that a great deal of what they loved about the place is gone or unalterably changed, and much of what they attempted failed or backfired.

The 30-something years covered in this novel, a sequel to Griffin's earlier "Halfway to Asia," reflect the changed perceptions, the disappointments and generational stresses this group experienced, and is laced with sadness at the loss of many youthful dreams tempered by cautious hope in the generation to come.

As well as novels to be read for pleasure, "Halfway to Asia" and "Web of Islands" reveal the lives and minds of the Islands' late-20th-century movers and shakers as reconstructed by a shrewd longtime observer of Hawai'i's socio-political scene.

If you can't find the book in stores, go to www.Xlibris.com or call (888) 795-4274.