Hawaii Revealed | The Ultimate Travel and Vacation Guidebooks
These are also excellent travel books, one for each island. We live on Oahu and I agree 2-3 days max here. Pearl Harbor / Waikiki one day, North Shore / Haleiwa one day, Kailua / Lanikai one day. Check out the
Tropical Farms - The Macadamia Nut Farm Outlet - Oahu Hawaii for a good little tour bus trip on your North Shore day, especially if the kids are on the younger side.
We tried to cram the Big Island into 4 days last year and we're headed back to explore the volcano and Hilo a little more this year. I've heard Maui is just a scaled down Oahu. Lanai has a couple of really nice 5 star resorts if you're just wanting to get pampered, but not much else. Kauai is awesome as long as the kids are old enough for some hiking. For a family trip I would vote 3 days on Oahu, then a week on the Big Island. There is a ton of stuff to do there and soooo much variety between Kona, Hilo, ranches up north, black sand beaches down south, driving up the mountain, the volcano, etc. Driving around the island almost feels like going through 4 different states back home.