| Booktalk
#1
Katie and her family didn't
have much material wealth, but they had each other. As a matter of
fact, Katie and her older sister Lynn were best friends. Which was
a very good thing since not too many people in the small Georgia town wanted
to be friends with Japanese Americans in the late 1950s. Katie didn't
understand when Lynn tried to explain how other girls would treat her when
she went to school. But it didn't matter as long as the girls had
each other. Their parents were spending more and more time working
so the girls didn't see them as much as they would like. But the
girls have each other. Until Lynn becomes deathly ill and Katie must
cope on her own.
Booktalk #2
How
did she do it? No matter how awful everything was, my sister focused on
the bright side... No, not just the bright ! She noticed what's kira-kira,
glittering.
I
can still hear her telling me that the sky is kira-kira because its color
is deep but see-through at the same time. The sea is kira-kira for the
same reason. And some people's eyes are kira-kira.
I
was just too young to understand. Lynn explained to me why people were
unkind to our parents when we moved to Georgia. After all, it was only
1950 when we left our Japanese community in Iowa. Our family's grocery
store closed, and mom and dad had heard that they could get jobs at the
poultry processing plants. So we went there, and they did. Lynn went to
school at first, but I was too young. When she came home in the afternoons,
she always had time for me and told me about the world, especially the
kira-kira things.
Mom
and Dad worked all the time, two jobs each, to save money to get a house
for us. Then Lynn got sick. After the funeral, I cried and admitted to
my uncle that I had gotten angry with her when she was sick. He told me
about his son, a cousin that I never knew I had, and how we have to live
for those we love.
So
I went to school, and I did like I'd seen Lynn do before she got sick.
And I had her diary! She had kept it for 4 years and wanted me to have
it, and her dictionary and her encyclopedia. At the end of December we
drove to California and as I walked by the sea, I could see kira-kira again
ahead of me. Colorado
Blue Spruce Young Adult Book Award, 2006-2007 |
