Kira Kira
Bibliographic Information
Cynthia Kadohata. (2004). Kira-Kira. Simon & Schuster Children's.
ISBN 0689856393
Genre: Historical Fiction
Recommended Age
12 +
Summary
Katie's first word is kira-kira, the Japanese word for "glittering". Anything she likes is "kira-kira", including the one who taught it to her, her older sister Lynn whom she idolizes. Set in the 1950s, a Japanese-American family relocates from a Japanese community in Iowa to a small town in Georgia so that Katie and Lynn's parents can take jobs in a chicken-processing plant. The girls' parents work grueling hours at the factory to provide for their family. Lynn's dream was for the family to move from their tiny apartment into a house, but her parents do not trust banks and do not borrow money. Lynn's health begins to deteriorate and Katie must care for her. Her parents concede to borrow money and buy their first house. Lynn picks it out and picks a sky blue house because Katie always said she wanted their first house to be sky blue. Lynn succumbs to lymphoma. Katie strives to keep seeing the kira-kira in life after losing her beloved sister.
Instructional Activities
• Read nonfiction text regarding treatment of Japanese-Americans during World War II. (Here is a source.) Discussion: How did events during WWII, a decade earlier, affect the action in this story?
Web Resources
Cynthia Kadohata's site
[Japanese American Internment
Comments (0)
You don't have permission to comment on this page.