Book Two

Kira-Kira, by Cynthia Kadohata

“Kira-kira” is a Japanese word meaning glittering, shimmering. It is the first Japanese word Lynn teachers her little sister, Katie. For the Takeshima sisters, “kira-kira” is the things in life that give us hope, give us faith, and in general are the things in life worth remembering. Lynn is Katie’s best friend and teacher. She teaches Katie lessons she deems worthy of knowing. Lynn is the one who tells Katie how the sky and ocean are special, that the family is moving from their Japanese community in Iowa to Georgia, and the injustice of racial prejudice that takes place at school and around town. Both girls have trouble adjusting in a new community where there are only thirty one other Japanese-Americans. The reader sees how the community treats Katie and her family differently because of their appearance, despite the fact that they were all born in America. Katie witnesses as her sister Lynn struggles to fit in with the other girls and in an effort to do so attempts to be less Japanese in appearance or custom, not wanting to partake in anything related even remotely to the Japanese culture. Katie’s mother and father work in a poultry processing plant under horrid conditions typical of factories in the mid-1950s. The girls seldom see their parents who must work constantly in an effort to put food on the table, and later, to pay for Lynn’s medical bills when she falls fatedly ill. The combination of all of these stories, tied together closely with a young girl’s perception of all of these events, provides for a beautifully written story about a young girl struggling to find her own way in a family torn by illness and atrocious work conditions. The reader is exposed to themes of loss, prejudice, and love, just to name a few in this tear-jerker novel. If anything we walk away from this book in search of the “kira-kira” in our own lives.

Kadonhata, Cynthia. kira-kira. New york: Simon & Schuster, 2004. Print.