krebabble

The Plot
After her parents’ store fails, Katie and her family move to Southern Georgia where her parents find work in the poultry industry. As Japanese-Americans in the 1950s south, opportunities for advancement are limited, and the family struggles to get by. But they’re managing it all right until Katie’s elder sister, Lynn, falls terminally ill. The family has to come to terms with her illness and death and how the event changes their perspective on some of their original goals.

My Thoughts
The story is narrated in the first person by Katie, the middle child of the family, and the writing style is intended to sound as if a child is telling the story. The author handles this adeptly, keeping both the vocabulary and the sentence structure simple enough that one isn’t jarred out of the tale by something too sophisticated for an 11 year old to have come up with.

The choice of subject is also interesting, as the only other book for this age group with a female Japanese protagonist that springs to mind is Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. That story, of course, takes place in Japan, while this one is set, at least nominally, in the South of the U.S. The choice of Georgia as a location, however, didn’t strike me as particularly necessary to the plot; it could just as easily have taken place in Arkansas or even a northern state, with a few minor changes. I’m undecided as to whether the lack of deep connection to the setting is a problem or not: the world of a child is pretty centered around their family, and aside from the weather, the adult realm doesn’t intrude on them a whole lot.

There were a lot of things going on in the U.S. in the 50s, but, as noted, because this book is written from the perspective of a child, we only get a peripheral view of most of them. The prejudice faced by the Japanese people in the town they live in seems, though obviously in existence, fairly minimal: this surprised me. I have to assume the author did her research, but with a setting where WW2 is in living memory for most of the adults and in an area not known for its progressive racial stance… it was unexpected to say the least. We get some feel for current working conditions, with Katie’s parents forced to work long and hard hours in order to earn enough money to start getting ahead. We hear her parents’ perspective on the drive among some of the workers to unionize; they find the idea abhorrent, disloyal — an obvious clash of cultural values.

And if that was all this book had been, a slow, somewhat plotless wind through the years of Katie’s growing up, I would recommend it. But, unfortunately for everyone, the author instead had to drag in one of the most cliched and infuriating plots of all time: a friend or sibling (or beloved pet) who dies, forcing the main character to look within themselves and learn something. (For the record, I will be keeping track of how many of these books use this plot device. I suspect it will be more than a few.) This plot can be done well. Kira-Kira didn’t handle it badly, but it also broke no new ground, and for that reason, I feel Lynn’s saga drags down what could have been a book with a unique perspective.

My second criticism of the book centers around the title. There are books where the source of the title is obvious; the author need not explain it: Alice in Wonderland, Anne of Green Gables. And then there are ones where the source of the title is slightly more obscure: Little Women, A Little Princess. In the latter sort of books, the title generally reflects some sort of theme the author wants us to pick up on. If they do their job well, the title’s origin will become obvious without the reader feeling bashed over the head with the information. I’m sorry to say that Kadohata does not manage this subtle twist. Instead, the story is bookended by two lengthy internal commentaries on the title word. I was willing to forgive the first; it is a foreign word, and some definition was necessary. But to drag it back and rub our nose in it at the end was just unforgiveable. If you’ve done your work, you don’t need to spell out the main theme to us thank you.

In Short
6/10 reduced to 4.5/10 for use of the death plot. If you have a strong interest in stories that feature Japanese characters, you’ll probably enjoy it in spots, but I can’t otherwise recommend it.

In other news, the 2006 winner is announced on Monday!