Kira- Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

Katie is an 11-year-old girl living with her family in the States circa 1950. She lives with her mother, father, sister Lynn, and later, her brother Sammy. Her parents were born in Japan, and back in those days, visual minorities weren't as socially acceptable as they are today. Katie's parents have to work in chicken hatcheries, because in those days Japanese- Americans couldn't do much else in terms of employment. Her sister Lynn eventually shows signs of a strengthening sickness and the story deals with the family's poverty, and the struggles her sister's illness cause, both on an emotional and an economic level. The novel's title, kira-kira, means to sparkle in Japanese. Her very intelligent sister sometimes showed Katie how the world could be amazing, how certain things in life would have a kira-kira.

I wasn't really impressed with this story. It won a Newbery award so I was expecting something good, I didn't end up getting it. Katie was an average kid, with an average intelligence level, and average thoughts, and an average life... which made this story an average book for me. The author would constantly have Katie notice how intelligent other people around her were, how good other people were, or hint at how interesting other people's lives must be. As the author kept doing this throughout the novel, and didn't make Katie's life any more interesting, I began to wish she had told the story from a different perspective. This story could have had a lot to say and could have been very emotional. It takes place in a very interesting time, from the perspective of people who would have struggled at that time, and on top of that their family had a major tragedy. Even with all of this potential, it was still a struggle to keep picking the book up. The author didn't do a good job establishing a connection between the reader and the characters, and as a result I didn't care about what happened to any of them. I kind of wished their situation would keep getting worse, hoping that that would engage me.

At the end of the book Katie talks about the whole kira-kira philosophy of the book and I felt like the concept didn't have enough weight to be presented as though it was present throughout the entire book. The author didn't spend enough time developing that idea or tying it into the events in the book. There were a lot of depressing, unfortunate situations, but no sparkling outlook from Katie's perspective. Maybe in the eyes of another character this idea was more developed... but that really doesn't help the reader as we are only privy to Katie's thoughts.

The book wasn't bad by any means. I know my review is somewhat... completely bashing it, but it wasn't a bad book. It just wasn't what I associate with Newbery books, or great books in general. The story was an average kids book, and I'm sure some kids would enjoy reading it, but the book might not make it to anyone's favourites list any time soon.