Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

     Review by:  Chris

Title:  Kira-Kira

Author: Cynthia Kadohata

Collection:  Juvenile Fiction

This 2005 Newbery Award winner is about many things.  It’s about life in the rural south in the 1950’s and 60’s.  It’s about being Japanese-American.  It’s about being poor and working hard.  It’s about surviving illness and loss.  But mostly, it’s about family, particularly sisters.  Katie Takeshima loves her sister Lynn most of the time, but this novel wouldn’t be nearly as touching if Kadohata didn’t maker her characters and their relationships so real.  Katie, the story’s narrator, doesn’t whitewash anything, so readers get to know and understand the two girls and experience the emptiness that Katie feels when Lynn dies of lymphoma.  There is nothing fast-paced about this short novel.  Instead, it is a nostalgic journey into another time and place that pays tribute to the people who are important in our lives, even when they annoy us sometimes.