Kira-Kira

Title: Kira-Kira
Author: Kadohata, Cynthia
Illustrator:
Published by Atheneum Books for Young Readers in 2004
Genre: Historical Fiction (Multicultural)
Age: 2-4
Newberry Medal Book

Kira-Kira is the story of a young Japanesse American named Katie Takeshima. The story takes place in the southern state of Georgia during the 1950's. Katie and her family have to move to Georgia so that her parents can get work in chicken factories to support their family. The main part of the story follows Katie along from the age of 10 to the age of 12. Helping her to explore life and understand it's meaning is her older sister Lynn or Lynnie as she called her. Lynn is four years older than Katie and Katie looks up to her big sister in every way possible. Katie feels that Lynn is the smartest girl in the world. Upon arriving in Georiga the Takeshimas move into a Japanese community and Katie begins to experince things that will change her life forever. Early one Lynn becomes very ill and Katie watches her family slowly fall apart. As her family falls apart Katie tries to keep strong and look beyond tomorrow like her sister had always taught her. However Katie doesn't find it as easy as Lynn had always made it seem. Katie learns about the harsh realities of Japanese americans in their society. Katie is also faced with learning hard lessons of lying, stealing and even death. Katie's journey is very powerful, sometimes sad and often full of love. Lynn dies at the end of the story and that is when Kira-Kira takes on a new meaning for Katie. Kira-Kira means to glitter or shine and after her sister dies she could see Lynn glittering and shinning and everything that was around her. Kira-Kira was not only the sea and the sky but it was her sister.

Kira- Kira and the story of Katie was such a heartfelt story. I couldn't read through the pages fast enough. I became so involved in Katie, Lynn, Sammie and all the other characters that I felt like I was there experincing these things with Katie. I cried when she cried and and couldn't help but laugh when they laughed. The first couple chapters were a little hard for me to get through because they were trying to get the story started and I had to remind myself that I was reading an elementary level book. The sentences were sometimes so simple and short that I read to fast and would skip over things. I had to tell myself to slow down my reading just a bit and take it all in. Once I was able to do that I couldn't believe how in depth I got into the book. It sadden me to see Katie think of herself as weak and not smart because in all honesty I thought she showed tremendous strenght throughout the entire book. She had to deal with alot of adult situations and handled them better then I could have at that young of an age. I would read this book over and over again and I am so looking forward to reading Weedflower in class. I would recommed this book to anyone and not just for the classroom but a personal read.

This book proposed alot of themes that we as teachers could use in our classroom. One of those is to examine the realtionship between Katie and Lynn. Their relationship was dominant and prominent throughout the entire book. They portray such realistic examples of how sister are close, grow apart with age but yet nothing can seperate them in the end. I think being able to examine these kinds of relationships with our students is important because these are real life situations that they face. Japanese american faced alot of hardships while trying to make their way in America. I think this book provides great knowledge and background to be able to talk about some of the issues they saw in the book and relate them to what is going on today. Death was profound in Kira-Kira. Death is somehting that is often hard for students to talk about and how it makes them feel. However with this book you become so involved with the characters that I trully feel that your students will feel some of the emotions that Katie might have felt. This is a great way to talk about these things and help them to become more comfortable with the subject. This could give them the opportunity to really explore all that death is and means to them and be able to share it with others, if they like. There are many other routes that you could go with this book like exploring southern Georgia in the 1950'2, the book talks about the union and much more. I feel this would be a great book to use in the classroom, it offers so much to learn about.