Long, long ago, Maui was the youngest brother, and his brothers never let him come fishing. So one night he hid in the bottom of their canoe. When they were far out at sea, he popped up! Too far to turn back now.

Maui took out a magic fishhook made from his grandmother's jawbone. He dipped it deep, deep, deep — and something ENORMOUS pulled back.

He pulled and chanted. His brothers paddled and groaned. The sea boiled white around them. And up from the bottom of the ocean came... land! A whole island, huge as a fish, dripping with seaweed, flapping with rivers, shining in the sun.

Some say the islands of the Pacific are all fish that Maui pulled up from the deep. When you stand on an island, you are standing on Maui's catch.

WONDER TOGETHER If you could fish up your own island, what would be on it?

In the old days, the Sun raced across the sky as fast as he pleased. Days were so short that people could not fish, could not plant, could not dry their clothes. Night came before anyone was ready.

Maui said: ENOUGH.

He and his brothers wove strong ropes from flax. They traveled east, all the way to the pit where the Sun sleeps, and laid their ropes like a net around it. When the Sun rose up, roaring and blazing — they PULLED. The ropes held!

The Sun thrashed and burned, but Maui would not let go. Not until the Sun made a promise: I will walk slowly across the sky.

And that is why days are long enough to fish, to plant, to play — and to watch the sunset all the way to the end.

WONDER TOGETHER What would you do with one extra-long day?

Hina lived by a clear pool, and in the pool lived a little eel. She fed him and he grew — and grew — and GREW — until he was Tuna, the great eel king, too big for the pool and too wild to be anyone's pet.

Tuna loved Hina, but he was frightening now. He followed her everywhere. Over the mountains her father raised. Over the new mountains her mother raised. Hina ran from village to village, and no one was brave enough to help.

At last one chief stood up for her, and Tuna's long chase came to its end. As the great eel lay dying, he called for Hina, and his voice was gentle, like the little eel in the pool.

'Bury my head beside your home,' he said. 'And you will see.'

Hina did. And out of the ground grew a tree no one had ever seen before — tall, with feathery leaves, and a fruit like a smooth brown head with two dark eyes.

The coconut. Sweet water inside, so the eel could give Hina a cool drink forever. Look at the next coconut you meet: it still has a face, still watching over her.

WONDER TOGETHER The scary eel became a gift. Can you think of something scary that turned out to be something else?

In the old homeland of Hawaiki, a giant octopus kept stealing the bait from the fishermen's hooks. Every day: lines up, bait gone. It was the pet of a jealous rival, and it was ruining everything. Kupe said: I will follow that octopus to the end of the ocean. He loaded the great canoe Matawhaorua with food and water. His whole family came. And the octopus swam, and Kupe followed — for days, for weeks, farther than anyone had ever sailed. At night he steered by the stars. By day he read the waves, the wind, the seabirds, the color of the water. Then one morning Kupe's wife stood up in the canoe and shouted: 'He ao! He ao!' — A cloud! A cloud! A long white cloud, resting on the horizon. And under a cloud like that, there is always land. A new land no one had ever seen: Aotearoa, the land of the long white cloud. Kupe caught the octopus at last in the wild strait between the islands.

And then he did the most important thing of all: he sailed home and told everyone THE WAY — the stars, the winds, the signs — so that others could follow. The ocean is not what separates the islands. The ocean is the road. WONDER TOGETHER Kupe's wife saw the cloud first. What do you notice that grown-ups miss?

Pele carries fire inside her. Real fire — the kind that melts stone.

She crossed the ocean in a canoe, looking for a home for her fire, carrying her digging stick. On each island she dug a fire pit — but her sister, the sea, followed her everywhere, and poured into every pit, sssssss, and put it out.

Sisters can be like that.

So Pele moved on. Island after island, down the long chain, digging deeper each time, until at last she came to the great mountain Kilauea, and dug a pit so deep and so high that the sea could not reach it.

There her fire still burns.

When Pele is angry, the mountain rumbles and glowing rock pours down to the sea. People are careful and respectful, because her temper is real.

But watch what happens where the fire touches the water. The lava cools. It hardens. It becomes... NEW LAND. Black new rock where nothing was, then one green shoot, then a forest, then a shore where children play.

The one who burns is the one who builds the islands. That is the secret about Pele: her fire and her making are the same fire.

WONDER TOGETHER Can a big feeling — even anger — help build something?

The navigators of the great ocean went to school for years — but their school had no walls, no books, and no pencils. They memorized the star paths: which star rises from which island, and which star to follow home. But the deepest lesson was not in the sky. It was in the body. On long voyages, when clouds hid every star, the chief navigator would lie down in the bottom of the canoe and close her eyes. And FEEL. Every island sends its own waves across the sea, the way a dropped stone sends rings across a pond. The canoe rocks one way on open ocean, and another way when land is near. The navigator's body had learned every push and lift — the way your body knows your own bed, even in the dark. The sailors would whisper: how can she find the way with her eyes CLOSED? Because the stars are only half the map. The other half is written in the body. TRY IT TONIGHT: Close your eyes. Think of something you love with your whole heart. Where do you feel it — your chest? Your belly? Your hands?

Now think of something that feels wrong for you. Where does your body say no?

That feeling is your canoe. The wayfinders trusted it across two thousand miles of open water. You can trust it too. WONDER TOGETHER When your body says YES very loudly — what is it usually about?