Book Review: Forgotten Oath

Reviewed by Samantha Hui

A delightful mix of historical, fantastical, and adventurous

Stories are rarely just stories. They are tradition and history and even promises. Forgotten Oath reminds readers of the power of the stories they hear and the stories they decide to make.

Dorothea Buckingham’s novel plants a seed of Hawaiian history, nourishing and watering it with her imagination and creative storytelling, and readers get to see it bloom into a fun and insightful story.

“‘Swirl your sponge gently and be respectful of the dead.’”

Fourteen-year-old Noah and his cousin Blaise are out on a class trip at a cemetery to commemorate the dead and clean off the old and forgotten headstones. Noah is mysteriously assigned a headstone for someone named Lopaka Aiona who lived during the 1800s and was stated to have either been captured or disappeared at age fourteen. 

After stealing a pouch he found near the headstone, Noah is transported to 1800s Hawaii and set on a quest to prove Lopaka’s innocence in a murder trial. Bouncing back and forth between his present day and 1800s Hawaii, Noah learns about the importance of storytelling, tradition, and family. 

“Horror movie! I’m in a horror movie: Blaise blabbing to Frank about my grandmother’s ghost stories. Check. Bad luck with a blinding gust of wind. Check. Getting banished to a creepy part of the cemetery. Check. And then there was Shaggy.”

This book is ambitious and wildly creative. I love that the story doesn’t spend too much time trying to convince the characters that it’s possible for Noah to travel back in time or and to see ghosts. We move quickly past the fantastical aspects of the story and are able to more clearly focus on the tightly turning plot. 

Noah is trying to clear the name of Lopaka by finding out who the real killer is. In the present, he acts as a historian and researcher to uncover new knowledge of past events; in the past, he acts as detective and action hero, questioning the parties involved and running away from bad guys.

“‘Back then, it took years for letters to go back and forth between Honolulu and London. Finally, after the British decided that rather than shipping Douglas’s body home, he should remain in Honolulu, they sent a headstone for his grave. But, like I said, unfortunately, no one knew where it was.’”

With so much excitement going on, the book sometimes misses out on building up the plot events and connecting the characters. The book achieves a lot in under 100 pages: Noah uses his funny internal voice, replete with memorable Hawaiian terms, to tell a story with a fantastical, adventurous plot. I enjoyed the story so much, but sometimes I did wish for more character details and histories, especially early on.

“Mom said all the ‘old way stories’ were good for just that: stories. And until that morning, I had agreed with her.”

The book at its heart is about legacy and the impact of storytelling. Without passing down family and cultural stories to the younger generations, they may not be prepared for the task at hand. Forgotten Oath is sure to captivate young audiences and prompt older audiences to consider what stories they would like to pass down. 

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