Finding Home, a Hawaiian Petrel's Journey - by Caren Loebel-Fried (Hardcover)

About the Book

Eleven-year-old Makani finds her own way to help her biologist mom save the beloved and endangered Hawaiian petrels. Includes facts about the Hawaiian petrels and their connection to Hawaiian culture and history.

Book Synopsis

2025 Nautilus Book Awards Silver Winner in Children's Illustrated Nonfiction

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 numbers to plummet to near extinction.

Makani's biologist mom and her team devise a plan to save the seabirds. Ten 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 dearly.

Based on the true story of and the people working to save them, Finding Home, a Hawaiian Petrel's Journey is filled with Caren Loebel-Fried's colorful block prints, dynamic drawings, and maps. Following the story, a back section provides scientific facts on the habitat and lifestyle of 'ua'u and their connection to Hawaiian culture and history. The book's middle-grade content includes place-based learning that incorporates natural science, wildlife conservation biology, literature, and art. Appealing to all ages, this hopeful, empowering story brings awareness to the threats humans have brought upon seabirds, and inspires us to find ways we can help them survive and thrive.

Review Quotes

Loebel-Fried's prose is as elegant and acrobatic as the 'ua'u themselves. [She] often brings us to the perspective of a petrel, giving an intimate and exciting portrait of a bird laying an egg, fledging, feeding a chick, or taking its first flight. Makani's story and the story of the petrels are intimately intertwined, and the sense that we humans live in an interconnected world pervades the book. . . . The wealth of resources at the end of the story . . . makes the book feel adult, like a resource that kids can return to again and again, making it a valuable addition to any bookshelf. [Full review: www.islandconservation.org/finding-hope-a-review-of-caren-loebel-frieds-finding-home-a-hawaiian-petrels-journey/]--Bren Ram "Island Conservation"

Through lyrical prose and her signature vibrant, hand-colored block prints, Loebel-Fried brings to life the perilous journeys of petrels--from hatching in mountain burrows to epic ocean migrations returning to nest in Hawai'i. The book describes heroic conservation efforts at real-life places at the remaining breeding locations of this once-ubiquitous species while highlighting the threats of habitat destruction, invasive predators, and climate change. The book is deeply rooted in science, using information drawn from ornithologists and conservationists at the forefront of efforts to save this and other endangered seabirds. It effectively balances fact with emotion, helping young readers connect with the struggles of this endangered seabird. . . . Overall, Finding Home is an engaging, educational, and visually stunning book that fosters awareness and appreciation for Hawai'i's native wildlife.--Keith Swindle "'Elepaio: Journal of the Hawai'i Audubon Society, 85:2 (March/April 2025)"

About the Author

Caren Loebel-Fried is an acclaimed author and artist from Volcano, Hawaiʻi. Conservation and the natural world are the foundations of her work. She has written and illustrated eight award-winning storybooks to date, including Manu, the Boy Who Loved Birds (2020), A Perfect Day for an Albatross (2017), and Hawaiian Legends of the Guardian Spirits (2002).