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A Place to Belong
Five starred reviews!
“Another gift from Kadohata to her readers.” — Booklist (starred review)
A Japanese American family, reeling from their ill treatment in the Japanese imprisonment camps, gives up their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation wreaked by the atomic bomb in this piercing and all too relevant look at the aftermath of World War II by Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata.
World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken.
America, the only home she’s ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family—and thousands of other innocent Americans—because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Japan, the country they’ve been forced to move to, the country they hope will be the family’s saving grace, where they were supposed to start new and better lives, is in shambles because America dropped bombs of their own—one on Hiroshima unlike any other in history. And Hanako’s grandparents live in a small village just outside the ravaged city.
The country is starving, the black markets run rampant, and countless orphans beg for food on the streets, but how can Hanako help them when there is not even enough food for her own brother?
Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi —fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers.
“Another gift from Kadohata to her readers.” — Booklist (starred review)
A Japanese American family, reeling from their ill treatment in the Japanese imprisonment camps, gives up their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation wreaked by the atomic bomb in this piercing and all too relevant look at the aftermath of World War II by Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata.
World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken.
America, the only home she’s ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family—and thousands of other innocent Americans—because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.
Japan, the country they’ve been forced to move to, the country they hope will be the family’s saving grace, where they were supposed to start new and better lives, is in shambles because America dropped bombs of their own—one on Hiroshima unlike any other in history. And Hanako’s grandparents live in a small village just outside the ravaged city.
The country is starving, the black markets run rampant, and countless orphans beg for food on the streets, but how can Hanako help them when there is not even enough food for her own brother?
Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi —fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers.
432 pages, Paperback
First published May 14, 2019
120 people are currently reading
2513 people want to read
About the author
Cynthia Kadohata
26 books591 followersCynthia Kadohata is a Japanese American writer known for her insightful coming-of-age stories about Asian American women. Her first published short story appeared in The New Yorker in 1986. As she spent her early childhood in the American South, the author set both her first adult novel and her first novel for children in Southern states. The former became a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, and the latter--her first children's book, entitled Kira-Kira--won the 2005 Newbery Medal.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 304 reviews
August 14, 2019
4.5 stars. A wonderful historical story about a family that is forced to return to Japan after World War II when main character Hana's parents give up their American citizenship in response to their terrible treatment at the hands of the government.
The family returns to small farm outside of Hiroshima where Hana’s grandparents are tenant farmers. Her grandparents are both kind and charming, and Hana bonds quickly with them.
There iare widespread food shortages, and people injured in the nuclear bomb are begging and struggling for food. The black market is thriving, and Hana’s father gets involved with it to help find food and other items for all of them.
This is both a painful and warm story. The suffering of everyone in the aftermath of the destruction of Hiroshima, as well as the constant hunger of Hana and her whole family, and their shameful treatment by the US post-Pearl Harbour provide the constant dark undercurrent to the beautiful relationships that develop between Hana and her grandmother and grandfather.
The family returns to small farm outside of Hiroshima where Hana’s grandparents are tenant farmers. Her grandparents are both kind and charming, and Hana bonds quickly with them.
There iare widespread food shortages, and people injured in the nuclear bomb are begging and struggling for food. The black market is thriving, and Hana’s father gets involved with it to help find food and other items for all of them.
This is both a painful and warm story. The suffering of everyone in the aftermath of the destruction of Hiroshima, as well as the constant hunger of Hana and her whole family, and their shameful treatment by the US post-Pearl Harbour provide the constant dark undercurrent to the beautiful relationships that develop between Hana and her grandmother and grandfather.
August 18, 2019
We always like to think that this country fought heroically in WWII but the truth is that this country didn't always act very admirably, and in fact, it sometimes acted down right unconstitutionally. Which is why, on Saturday, January 12, 1946, 12-year-old Hanako Tachibana, her brother Akira, age 5, and their parents have just arrived in Japan after a long journey from Tule Lake Concentration Camp in northern California.
Having lost their home, their restaurant, their possessions, even Hanako's cat, the Tachibana family were living in internment camps since 1942, after President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066. They had ended up in Tule Lake in 1943 because Mr. Tachibana had refused to answer yes to one of two loyalty questions on a government questionnaire designed to separate loyal from disloyal Japanese American men. Ultimately, Hanako's parents decided renounced their American citizenship when pressed to do so by the government and the family was repatriated to Japan at the end of the war, a country neither Hanako nor Akira had ever been to before.
Hanako expects Japan to look as beautiful as it had in pictures she had seen, but the reality is a Japan that is as broken and poverty-stricken as she feels. Traveling to her paternal grandparents, tenant farmers living just outside of Hiroshima and struggling to survive, Hanako witnesses soldiers and civilians, dirty, disheveled, often crippled, begging for something to eat, as well as the destruction all around her, blackened trees, buildings and homes turned to rubble, all as a result of the atom bomb that had been dropped there by the Americans.
At her grandparents home, Jiichan (grandfather) and Baachan (grandmother) welcome the family with open arms and unconditional love, despite not even having enough to eat for themselves. Hanako helps out as much as she can working in the fields, but soon finds herself in school, where she is treated like an outsider. Although she can get by speaking Japanese, her reading and writing are almost non-existence, as is her skill using an abacus. Even her long braid is cause for criticism among the other girls.
Hanako is a sensitive, observant, questioning girl, who is growing up too quickly, but is stuck in the past and afraid of the future. One of the first things Jiichan teaches her is that the way to move forward is through kintsukuroi, which is a way of repairing broken pottery using lacquer dusted with gold, so the repaired pottery is even more beautiful than it had originally been. The trauma of having lost everything has caused Hanako to question who she is, where she belongs, and what she now believes in. She may feel like a broken piece of pottery, but Hanako figures life is more complicated than a repaired bowl.
Eventually, however, Hanako's parents decide that they would like to return to America and begin working with an American civil rights lawyer, Wayne Collins, to make that happen. Mr. Collins is putting together a class action suit to help those who were repatriated to Japan after the war to regain their citizenship and return to America. But when her parents petition is refused, the family is forced to make some hard decisions. Yet, through everything that has happened to her family, Hanako finally begins to understand her grandfather's lesson on kinsukuroi, and learns that in life gold can take many forms, and that understanding is just what she needs to be able to move forward with her life.
I won't lie, A Place to Belong is a difficult book to read. Not because of the writing, which is beautifully straightforward. Or the characters, which are drawn so well you feel like you really know them. What makes it difficult is the reality of what happens, and knowing that Hanako's life is broken because of war, because of who she is and what is done to her by her own country - the United States. In addition, descriptions of children and adults begging in the streets, of people starving and disfigured in the aftermath of the atomic bomb, of black markets taking advantage of desperate people offer a disturbing, yet realistic look at post-war Japan even as Hanako tries to piece together just who she is amid the wreckage within and around her.
A Place to Belong is historical fiction based on real events. All men of Japanese ancestry really were required to complete the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" in 1943 and they, along with their families, were sent to Tule Lake Concentration Camp if they were deemed disloyal based on their answers. Tule Lake was a harsh, cruel place where inmates were treated like prisoners and many, like Hanako's family, were deported to Japan after the war.
A Place to Belong should be read by anyone interested in WWII history, however, I think readers will definitely see parallels to much of what is happening in our world today. Be sure to read Kadahata's Afterword for more information about Wayne Collins and the work he did on behalf of wronged Japanese Americans.
You can download a reading guide for A Place to Belong from the publisher, Simon & Schuster, HERE
You might want to pair A Place to Belong with No-No Boy by John Okada. No-No Boy looks at the post-war life of a Japanese American boy who answered no to both of the loyalty questions, but did not give up his citizenship.
This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was provided to me by the publisher, Simon & Schuster, with gratitude
Having lost their home, their restaurant, their possessions, even Hanako's cat, the Tachibana family were living in internment camps since 1942, after President Roosevelt had signed Executive Order 9066. They had ended up in Tule Lake in 1943 because Mr. Tachibana had refused to answer yes to one of two loyalty questions on a government questionnaire designed to separate loyal from disloyal Japanese American men. Ultimately, Hanako's parents decided renounced their American citizenship when pressed to do so by the government and the family was repatriated to Japan at the end of the war, a country neither Hanako nor Akira had ever been to before.
Hanako expects Japan to look as beautiful as it had in pictures she had seen, but the reality is a Japan that is as broken and poverty-stricken as she feels. Traveling to her paternal grandparents, tenant farmers living just outside of Hiroshima and struggling to survive, Hanako witnesses soldiers and civilians, dirty, disheveled, often crippled, begging for something to eat, as well as the destruction all around her, blackened trees, buildings and homes turned to rubble, all as a result of the atom bomb that had been dropped there by the Americans.
At her grandparents home, Jiichan (grandfather) and Baachan (grandmother) welcome the family with open arms and unconditional love, despite not even having enough to eat for themselves. Hanako helps out as much as she can working in the fields, but soon finds herself in school, where she is treated like an outsider. Although she can get by speaking Japanese, her reading and writing are almost non-existence, as is her skill using an abacus. Even her long braid is cause for criticism among the other girls.
Hanako is a sensitive, observant, questioning girl, who is growing up too quickly, but is stuck in the past and afraid of the future. One of the first things Jiichan teaches her is that the way to move forward is through kintsukuroi, which is a way of repairing broken pottery using lacquer dusted with gold, so the repaired pottery is even more beautiful than it had originally been. The trauma of having lost everything has caused Hanako to question who she is, where she belongs, and what she now believes in. She may feel like a broken piece of pottery, but Hanako figures life is more complicated than a repaired bowl.
Eventually, however, Hanako's parents decide that they would like to return to America and begin working with an American civil rights lawyer, Wayne Collins, to make that happen. Mr. Collins is putting together a class action suit to help those who were repatriated to Japan after the war to regain their citizenship and return to America. But when her parents petition is refused, the family is forced to make some hard decisions. Yet, through everything that has happened to her family, Hanako finally begins to understand her grandfather's lesson on kinsukuroi, and learns that in life gold can take many forms, and that understanding is just what she needs to be able to move forward with her life.
I won't lie, A Place to Belong is a difficult book to read. Not because of the writing, which is beautifully straightforward. Or the characters, which are drawn so well you feel like you really know them. What makes it difficult is the reality of what happens, and knowing that Hanako's life is broken because of war, because of who she is and what is done to her by her own country - the United States. In addition, descriptions of children and adults begging in the streets, of people starving and disfigured in the aftermath of the atomic bomb, of black markets taking advantage of desperate people offer a disturbing, yet realistic look at post-war Japan even as Hanako tries to piece together just who she is amid the wreckage within and around her.
A Place to Belong is historical fiction based on real events. All men of Japanese ancestry really were required to complete the so-called "loyalty questionnaire" in 1943 and they, along with their families, were sent to Tule Lake Concentration Camp if they were deemed disloyal based on their answers. Tule Lake was a harsh, cruel place where inmates were treated like prisoners and many, like Hanako's family, were deported to Japan after the war.
A Place to Belong should be read by anyone interested in WWII history, however, I think readers will definitely see parallels to much of what is happening in our world today. Be sure to read Kadahata's Afterword for more information about Wayne Collins and the work he did on behalf of wronged Japanese Americans.
You can download a reading guide for A Place to Belong from the publisher, Simon & Schuster, HERE
You might want to pair A Place to Belong with No-No Boy by John Okada. No-No Boy looks at the post-war life of a Japanese American boy who answered no to both of the loyalty questions, but did not give up his citizenship.
This book is recommended for readers age 10+
This book was provided to me by the publisher, Simon & Schuster, with gratitude
August 2, 2019
What stood out to me:
This was a different twist on historical fiction about the round-up of Japanese Americans during WW2. This family had to
deal with the aftermath of the destruction of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan after they have been “repatriated”.
I think this would be an excellent tool for middle-grade teachers to use in lessons about Japanese internment.
This was a different twist on historical fiction about the round-up of Japanese Americans during WW2. This family had to
deal with the aftermath of the destruction of the atomic bombs dropped on Japan after they have been “repatriated”.
I think this would be an excellent tool for middle-grade teachers to use in lessons about Japanese internment.
September 4, 2019
I wanted to like this more than I did. I think I just couldn't stomach such a sad book. The writing is lovely and worthy but I never felt terribly connected to the characters.
September 2, 2019
Listened to audiobook. I surprise myself with this rating, because I found the beginning terribly slow and hard to get into. Several times when I had time to listen, I chose to do something else, because this felt like such a slog. I had really enjoyed Kadohata's previous book, Checked. In that book, the presentation of all the little details felt consistent with Conor's personality and interests. In this 3rd-person book, the same piling-on just felt like author's inconsiderateness -- I don't really care how an iron works and it didn't seem important to the story to tell me. That being said, Kadohata is a very good writer, and once the book settles into the family's life in Japan, this felt like a very good book. The experience for me seemed thus similar to Warga's Other Words for Home. The back-scratching scene is probably one of the most memorable of the year in children's literature.
June 14, 2019
This was a book that I picked up from the local library, for my mom who is not able to go far from home. She told me to read this one because it was soooo good. And she was right. My connection to the Japanese people is very close and my husband's own relatives were in the internment camps.
As I read this sweet book, I came to understand the feelings of these people in this very unfortunate situation much better. The book revealed things that I had supposed happened, because my mother fled the eastern areas of Germany during WWII and was also in a camp in the Czech Republic. This book brought this much closer to my thoughts and understanding. I highly recommend this book. It was very, very good. You come to love the family of Hanako and their love for one another.
A must read!
As I read this sweet book, I came to understand the feelings of these people in this very unfortunate situation much better. The book revealed things that I had supposed happened, because my mother fled the eastern areas of Germany during WWII and was also in a camp in the Czech Republic. This book brought this much closer to my thoughts and understanding. I highly recommend this book. It was very, very good. You come to love the family of Hanako and their love for one another.
A must read!
June 10, 2019
Five stars for being a book like no other I've ever read. Five stars for an unflinching portrayal of the human-level destruction the American government caused in the lives of Japanese Americans during/after WWII.
This was not an easy book to read. This part of American history is so very shameful. I admire Cynthia Kadohata for trusting me to infer the meaning of the Japanese words she used and then remember them the next time, but I really wished for a glossary. I could not/cannot wrap my head around the Japanese world view portrayed in the book...but that's exactly why we need books that are windows.
This was not an easy book to read. This part of American history is so very shameful. I admire Cynthia Kadohata for trusting me to infer the meaning of the Japanese words she used and then remember them the next time, but I really wished for a glossary. I could not/cannot wrap my head around the Japanese world view portrayed in the book...but that's exactly why we need books that are windows.
July 27, 2020
A Place to Belong wasn't Cynthia Kadohata's first novel about the internment camps for Japanese Americans in World War II. Weedflower, published thirteen years earlier, takes us into an internment camp as seen from the perspective of a girl named Sumiko; A Place to Belong begins after twelve-year-old Hanako Tachibana and her family are released from four years of involuntary internment. Hanako and her five-year-old brother Akira were born and raised in the United States, but their lives were upended after Japan's attack on Pearl Harbor in December 1941. Mama and Papa had worked hard to provide a comfortable life for their children, with Papa starting a successful restaurant, but everything changed when President Franklin Roosevelt ordered that all people in the U.S. of Japanese descent be rounded up and confined. More than a hundred thousand were held against their will for years; Hanako watched the stress prematurely age her parents as they went from having financial security to being destitute. Now it is 1946; World War II is over and Roosevelt has passed away, but the government still distrusts Japanese Americans. Hanako's parents are among many to voluntarily renounce their U.S. citizenship and accept deportation to Japan, but after losing the war, Japan is bankrupt and full of uncertainty. Does the Land of the Rising Sun have anything to offer the Tachibana family?
Emigrating across the ocean is weeks of torment for Hanako, who experiences perpetual seasickness in a ship crammed with passengers. The voyage seems eternal, but eventually Hanako and her family end up in Japan on a train headed into the nation's rural interior. She knows the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, but Hanako isn't prepared for the devastation she witnesses from the train. How did one bomb destroy so much? Many of the Japanese Americans pressured to waive their citizenship have nowhere to go, but Papa's mother and father are tenement farmers in a village untouched by the atomic bomb; he knows they will gladly house his family. Hanako and Akira have never met their jiichan and baachan, but from first sight, the little old man and woman exude unfailing love for their grandchildren. Jiichan and Baachan have a worn-out house and they lack food, but everything is happily shared with their son's family. Decades of harsh farm labor has not treated Jiichan and Baachan well, but they are overjoyed to add members to their household.
Every area of the Tachibanas' new life is difficult. Already small for his age, Akira needs better nutrition than his grandparents can afford, and even after Papa gets a job, it isn't enough to feed a pair of growing children. Hanako's braided hair and purple coat—all that remains of her family's affluence prior to Pearl Harbor—make her a target of resentment at school. Hanako's final years in the U.S. were awful, but here she sees kids who endured agony beyond her capacity to imagine. A boy named Kiyoshi wanders the streets with his little sister Mimi in search of food; always on the brink of starvation, the search encompasses every moment of his life, and he regards Hanako bitterly for her family's "privilege," meager as it is. Kiyoshi's family died from atomic radiation after the Hiroshima bomb; he watched his mother, horrifically disfigured from the attack, lay down and die, her broken body simply switching itself off. Kiyoshi suffered severe burns all over, but Hanako nonetheless feels drawn to him. Should she give him rice when he begs, even if it means Akira won't eat tonight? Can Japan ever be a proper home for Hanako and Akira? Hanako's family struggles as days, weeks, and months pass, but she dreads the solution her parents are contemplating. What will she do if she and Akira are forced to say goodbye to Mama and Papa and leave Japan?
"Maybe sometimes you just had to go out into the world and trust what would happen. You had to trust that there were good people in the world."
—A Place to Belong, P. 388
When Mama and Papa first settled in America, the country treated them well. They were free to work diligently and prosper, which Papa did as a restauranteur. He could have accumulated wealth for the rest of his career and then handed the restaurant over to Hanako or Akira if they wanted it. President Roosevelt derailed the Tachibanas' American success story by recategorizing the family not based on their record of contribution to U.S. society, but according to the color of their skin and shape of their eyes. The president ignored their rights as Americans, and Hanako's family and more than 100,000 other Japanese Americans suffered as a result. The way Hanako frames it is fitting: "(W)rong or right, the problem with governments is that they were very big and you were very small." From its founding, the U.S. government was not supposed to be able to override Constitutional protections; the inappropriate expansion of government is what led to the atrocity of the internment camps. President Roosevelt should have been powerless to suspend fundamental rights of Japanese Americans. Most of them survived the ordeal, but they were harrowing years. Someday their freedoms would be restored, but those days seemed impossibly far away to kids like Hanako. Hope is hard to keep hold of when all you see ahead is darkness.
Cynthia Kadohata's first juvenile novel, Kira-Kira, won the 2005 Newbery Medal and is one of the finest stories I've read. It moved me by turns to hysterical laughter and uncontrollable sobbing, and is a quintessential example of what a Newbery book should be. The author's Outside Beauty is also deeply affecting, as is Half a World Away, a departure from the Japanese American culture Cynthia Kadohata usually writes. She's released numerous other novels, but The Thing About Luck perhaps most resembles A Place to Belong. Both are unadorned, thoughtful narratives about Japanese American families finding their way in a complex world. A Place to Belong features worthy themes, though the story is low-energy and overlong; I'll rate it two and a half stars, and I could have rounded that up or down. It's not my favorite from Cynthia Kadohata, but the read did me good, and I know others would say the same.
Emigrating across the ocean is weeks of torment for Hanako, who experiences perpetual seasickness in a ship crammed with passengers. The voyage seems eternal, but eventually Hanako and her family end up in Japan on a train headed into the nation's rural interior. She knows the U.S. dropped an atomic bomb on Hiroshima, but Hanako isn't prepared for the devastation she witnesses from the train. How did one bomb destroy so much? Many of the Japanese Americans pressured to waive their citizenship have nowhere to go, but Papa's mother and father are tenement farmers in a village untouched by the atomic bomb; he knows they will gladly house his family. Hanako and Akira have never met their jiichan and baachan, but from first sight, the little old man and woman exude unfailing love for their grandchildren. Jiichan and Baachan have a worn-out house and they lack food, but everything is happily shared with their son's family. Decades of harsh farm labor has not treated Jiichan and Baachan well, but they are overjoyed to add members to their household.
Every area of the Tachibanas' new life is difficult. Already small for his age, Akira needs better nutrition than his grandparents can afford, and even after Papa gets a job, it isn't enough to feed a pair of growing children. Hanako's braided hair and purple coat—all that remains of her family's affluence prior to Pearl Harbor—make her a target of resentment at school. Hanako's final years in the U.S. were awful, but here she sees kids who endured agony beyond her capacity to imagine. A boy named Kiyoshi wanders the streets with his little sister Mimi in search of food; always on the brink of starvation, the search encompasses every moment of his life, and he regards Hanako bitterly for her family's "privilege," meager as it is. Kiyoshi's family died from atomic radiation after the Hiroshima bomb; he watched his mother, horrifically disfigured from the attack, lay down and die, her broken body simply switching itself off. Kiyoshi suffered severe burns all over, but Hanako nonetheless feels drawn to him. Should she give him rice when he begs, even if it means Akira won't eat tonight? Can Japan ever be a proper home for Hanako and Akira? Hanako's family struggles as days, weeks, and months pass, but she dreads the solution her parents are contemplating. What will she do if she and Akira are forced to say goodbye to Mama and Papa and leave Japan?
"Maybe sometimes you just had to go out into the world and trust what would happen. You had to trust that there were good people in the world."
—A Place to Belong, P. 388
When Mama and Papa first settled in America, the country treated them well. They were free to work diligently and prosper, which Papa did as a restauranteur. He could have accumulated wealth for the rest of his career and then handed the restaurant over to Hanako or Akira if they wanted it. President Roosevelt derailed the Tachibanas' American success story by recategorizing the family not based on their record of contribution to U.S. society, but according to the color of their skin and shape of their eyes. The president ignored their rights as Americans, and Hanako's family and more than 100,000 other Japanese Americans suffered as a result. The way Hanako frames it is fitting: "(W)rong or right, the problem with governments is that they were very big and you were very small." From its founding, the U.S. government was not supposed to be able to override Constitutional protections; the inappropriate expansion of government is what led to the atrocity of the internment camps. President Roosevelt should have been powerless to suspend fundamental rights of Japanese Americans. Most of them survived the ordeal, but they were harrowing years. Someday their freedoms would be restored, but those days seemed impossibly far away to kids like Hanako. Hope is hard to keep hold of when all you see ahead is darkness.
Cynthia Kadohata's first juvenile novel, Kira-Kira, won the 2005 Newbery Medal and is one of the finest stories I've read. It moved me by turns to hysterical laughter and uncontrollable sobbing, and is a quintessential example of what a Newbery book should be. The author's Outside Beauty is also deeply affecting, as is Half a World Away, a departure from the Japanese American culture Cynthia Kadohata usually writes. She's released numerous other novels, but The Thing About Luck perhaps most resembles A Place to Belong. Both are unadorned, thoughtful narratives about Japanese American families finding their way in a complex world. A Place to Belong features worthy themes, though the story is low-energy and overlong; I'll rate it two and a half stars, and I could have rounded that up or down. It's not my favorite from Cynthia Kadohata, but the read did me good, and I know others would say the same.
July 17, 2019
I haven't ended a book with tears for a long time, and this time I did. When you read of twelve-year-old Hanako's family, coming from the internment camps, parents giving up their American citizenship to move back to the area around Hiroshima, you realize that war is not always over because the aftermath is also devastating. Hanako is American and now lost with her world broken, finding everything different and so hard to fit in. She's been rejected by her home country, the family's lost their restaurant, and now there is nowhere to turn but to her father's parents, tenant farmers in the countryside. The country, including Jiichan and Baachan, grandparents who shower Hanako and Akira, her young brother, with unconditional love, are starving. Yet they still make room in their small home, welcoming their son and family. They will do everything for family!
Hanako is growing up and in that process she questions so many things, including how to help orphans begging on the streets when her brother cries out constantly that he is hungry. In this turmoil, Grandfather Jiichan explains: "This is 'kintsukuroi'. Thing break, you must fix with gold. It is only way to live your life." This is fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. Discovering that 'gold' for fixing is an underlying theme for each family member.
I loved another part when Hanako decided "Maybe sometimes you just had to go out into the world and trust what would happen." She has decided that gold can come in many forms, as I found in many parts of this story. Cynthia Kadohata shares the history that will enlighten those who do not know what happened to these Japanese people who were part of our country in this loving novel of hardship, love, and always hope. Julia Kuo has added a few illustrations to the story. It's a 'best book' this year for me.
Hanako is growing up and in that process she questions so many things, including how to help orphans begging on the streets when her brother cries out constantly that he is hungry. In this turmoil, Grandfather Jiichan explains: "This is 'kintsukuroi'. Thing break, you must fix with gold. It is only way to live your life." This is fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. Discovering that 'gold' for fixing is an underlying theme for each family member.
I loved another part when Hanako decided "Maybe sometimes you just had to go out into the world and trust what would happen." She has decided that gold can come in many forms, as I found in many parts of this story. Cynthia Kadohata shares the history that will enlighten those who do not know what happened to these Japanese people who were part of our country in this loving novel of hardship, love, and always hope. Julia Kuo has added a few illustrations to the story. It's a 'best book' this year for me.
May 1, 2019
This is a tough story, sensitively told. Set in the aftermath of the American Internment of Japanese Americans, Hanako and her family are repatriated to Japan, after being forced to renounce their citizenship under duress. They are "returned" to Hiroshima and Hanako is suddenly adjusting to a country and a life that is nothing like where she grew up. It's a quiet moving book -- a lot happens, but much of the emotion lurks beneath the surface. There is the awful fear of starvation, the knowledge of hunger balanced against the freedom of a new life with her grandparents. It brings home a lot of the beauty of traditional Japanese culture and values, while embracing the West and the opportunity America represented. It holds America accountable, but in a compassionate manner. It illustrates the heartbreaking decisions that war forces families to make.
Advanced Readers Copy provided by Edelweiss.
Advanced Readers Copy provided by Edelweiss.
February 28, 2023
Hanako and her family---her father, mother, and little brother---are moving to Japan. The war is over, a war which the family spent interred in a detention camp for Japanese Americans. Roosevelt offered the adults an opportunity to revoke their citizenship and to be returned to Japan and Hanako's parents have decided to do this. They are going to stay with Hanako's grandparents on a country farm outside a large city, Hiroshima, a city that was rumored in the camps to have been bombed.
I loved this story of a girl and her family who are trying to find their place in the world, a world that is shifting, changing, where no one feels certain of what home is. It's a story I haven't heard before now, and it's delicately told in that beautiful Japanese way of honing in on a single flower petal and then zooming out suddenly to the big truths of the world.
I'm pretty sure this will be my favorite middle grade read of the year.
I loved this story of a girl and her family who are trying to find their place in the world, a world that is shifting, changing, where no one feels certain of what home is. It's a story I haven't heard before now, and it's delicately told in that beautiful Japanese way of honing in on a single flower petal and then zooming out suddenly to the big truths of the world.
I'm pretty sure this will be my favorite middle grade read of the year.
July 15, 2020
Biographers focus on the lives of the great. Novelists, thank goodness, can explore the lives of the not-so rich and the obscure. It can be difficult to identify with or to even like Marie Antoinette or Gandhi, but when I get my hands on a book like this one, I'm all in. Kadohata writes of the struggles of a Japanese-American family in the wake of WW11, and she does it with consummate grace. In the face of some monumental mistakes, both societal and personal - internment, prison, renouncing US citizenship - here is a small family living a small life, and yet it is monumentally brave, generous, and kind.
October 15, 2023
Amazing! Didn't want it to end!
October 29, 2021
A hard book but a really worthwhile one. I like that this tackles life directly after WW2. Books about Japanese American internment and abuse by the American government are always personal to me because my family went through it, but this was a new perspective -- all about a family who (under duress) renounce their citizenship and go to live in Japan once they're released from camp.
The subject matter -- starving children, the aftermath of atomic bombs, hopelessness -- is heavy. It's not an easy book to get through, but Kadohata writes with such honesty and emotion that even though I didn't enjoy the book exactly, I did think it was excellent. I adored the Bachan and Gichan. Their life and attitude made me want to cry. This book will have you realizing how difficult life was for so many, not so long ago. And probably still is in too many places.
The subject matter -- starving children, the aftermath of atomic bombs, hopelessness -- is heavy. It's not an easy book to get through, but Kadohata writes with such honesty and emotion that even though I didn't enjoy the book exactly, I did think it was excellent. I adored the Bachan and Gichan. Their life and attitude made me want to cry. This book will have you realizing how difficult life was for so many, not so long ago. And probably still is in too many places.
November 16, 2023
This was the 2019 winner of the Freeman Book Award for Young Adult/Middle School literature; I read this to write Curriculum Notes for NCTA. It is a wonderful and sensitive book that incorporates the history of Japanese internment camps, the dropping of the bomb on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and questions of Japanese-American citizenship. It also does a really beautiful job addressing cultural, national, gender, and adolescent identity in post-WWII Japan.
March 8, 2022
This was SO interesting! We follow Hanako through her journey to Japan after WWII into a country in turmoil. I will say I think this book glazed over how bad things really were in Japan at times. But over all it was very interesting and I really enjoyed it.
May 7, 2020
I am sad to say that this book really didn't do it for me. I had issues with the many sentences that ended in exclamation points! for no real reason! Our main character, Hanako, is a 12-year old girl who says a lot of stupid stuff. And after she says things, she thinks, "I have no idea why I just said that." But she does it all the time. It's usually quite clear to the person she's talking to that she is lying, yet no one challenges her, so she continues doing it.
And what is up with her little brother? Through the middle of the book, I was convinced that he was someone with a severe developmental delay or autism. I was panicked the moment that Hanako was told she was going back to America with him, because I didn't know how she'd possibly be able to take care of him. But the last few things Akira said and did seemed out of character with how he'd been for the entire book, meaning he was behaving more normally.
Growing up, I had no idea what happened to thousands of Japanese Americans immediately after World War II, so in that way, this book is needed. Historical fiction is already a difficult sell to students, and this book doesn't give me many selling points.
And what is up with her little brother? Through the middle of the book, I was convinced that he was someone with a severe developmental delay or autism. I was panicked the moment that Hanako was told she was going back to America with him, because I didn't know how she'd possibly be able to take care of him. But the last few things Akira said and did seemed out of character with how he'd been for the entire book, meaning he was behaving more normally.
Growing up, I had no idea what happened to thousands of Japanese Americans immediately after World War II, so in that way, this book is needed. Historical fiction is already a difficult sell to students, and this book doesn't give me many selling points.
May 20, 2020
My favorite genre to read is historical fiction, specifically books about the WWII time period. I have read many so I am always thrilled to read one from a new point of view. This book was incredible. It is not full of high drama and constant tension. But I did feel like I was forced to look at a situation from both sides, simultaneously. Kudos to the author for creating that using just words. The true power of a book on display here. Incredible! This was my favorite book published in 2019. I read it as part of a mock Newbery discussion. It was on a list of 16 books and it did end up winning the group vote.
November 26, 2019
3.5.....
I liked this book! I think that it is a well written story about finding your home, and how family is most important through everything. I rated it 3.5 stars because I personally have read a couple books pretty similar to it, and I didn't think that the plot was so creative or original. I recommend this book if you like Historical Fiction and haven't read many books like it.
I liked this book! I think that it is a well written story about finding your home, and how family is most important through everything. I rated it 3.5 stars because I personally have read a couple books pretty similar to it, and I didn't think that the plot was so creative or original. I recommend this book if you like Historical Fiction and haven't read many books like it.
November 27, 2019
Masterful
February 28, 2020
Excellent. Important read. I am thinking of making my daughter read it.
Read
April 17, 2019I know very little about the Japanese diaspora of Nikkei post-World War II, and this book was an eye-opener, as well as heart warming and breaking, as told through the eyes of a young girl.
Hana's family had been held in internment camps in the US, until they were sent via ship back to Japan. Her family returns to her father's parents home, where grandmother and grandfather are still alive, and they're still barely subsisting as tenant farmers. Hana struggles with trying to figure out a whole new country, while also struggling to fit in with her new classmates, her neighbors who are poorer than she can even imagine (and she comes to Japan with nothing herself), neighbors who've been hurt in various war bombings, and what it means for her family to be all together for the first time in a long time. Hana's eyes are widened at these stark realities, as well as the consequences of war when it comes to being simultaneously an insider -- her family is from Japan -- and an outsider -- she is Japanese American.
Interspersed within the narrative are illustrations. I wish there'd been more, but they added a nice dimension to the story, tempering some of the sadness. The relationships between Hana and her brother, born with a port-wine stain, as well as the relationships between Hana and her parents and Hana and her grandparents are well-rendered. I only wish we'd seen more of her experiences at school in the classroom, though because this is already a longer book, I understand why. Hana and her situation were compelling enough to make the 400+ page book a quick read.
Hana's family had been held in internment camps in the US, until they were sent via ship back to Japan. Her family returns to her father's parents home, where grandmother and grandfather are still alive, and they're still barely subsisting as tenant farmers. Hana struggles with trying to figure out a whole new country, while also struggling to fit in with her new classmates, her neighbors who are poorer than she can even imagine (and she comes to Japan with nothing herself), neighbors who've been hurt in various war bombings, and what it means for her family to be all together for the first time in a long time. Hana's eyes are widened at these stark realities, as well as the consequences of war when it comes to being simultaneously an insider -- her family is from Japan -- and an outsider -- she is Japanese American.
Interspersed within the narrative are illustrations. I wish there'd been more, but they added a nice dimension to the story, tempering some of the sadness. The relationships between Hana and her brother, born with a port-wine stain, as well as the relationships between Hana and her parents and Hana and her grandparents are well-rendered. I only wish we'd seen more of her experiences at school in the classroom, though because this is already a longer book, I understand why. Hana and her situation were compelling enough to make the 400+ page book a quick read.
August 8, 2019
First sentence: This was the secret thing Hanako felt about old people: she really didn’t understand them.
Premise/plot: Hanako and her brother Akira are traveling to Japan with their parents. It will be the first time they meet their grandparents. There will be many, many firsts both on the journey by ship, the train ride to Hiroshima, and life in a small country village. The year is 1946; Hanako’s family is one of hundreds that have renounced their American citizenship. (The parents have—not the children, at least in this case.) Hanako thought any life outside the camps (internment camps) would be an improvement. One thing the family has in abundance love and affection. There is a sweet, tender, compassionate side to all the relationships. The two children love, love, love their grandfather and grandmother. It is mutual. These two grandparents have been unconditionally loving them since they were born. But there are many, many hardships—namely lack of food. There isn’t enough food to feed six people. Even if everyone works every day all day. Hunger is ever present and it gnaws at the family’s hope. It is important for them all that the children hold onto hope. Is there a future for them all in Japan? Is Japan the place the family belongs? Or is America still home despite the way they were treated?
My thoughts: What a tender and compelling read! Hanako touched me and I believe she’ll touch you too. What I loved most about her was her heart. She is kind, generous, thoughtful, sensitive to others. She is the model of empathy. And not in a goody two shoes way. She sees how the war—particularly the dropping of the atomic bomb has devastated a community and impacted so many. She sees the pain and seeks to do something—anything, even if it’s just a small gesture.
I also loved the family as a whole. Unconditional love, sacrificial love, selfless love. There was just something lovely and tender yet bittersweet as well. I just wanted to hug all the characters.
The book is character-driven. It told a story that I was unfamiliar with and found fascinating. I had no idea that some families chose to leave America and “return” to Japan after the war. I had no idea that many later hired a lawyer to fight on their behalf to have their citizenships reinstated. Did the families truly choose or were they pressured to renounce? The book also gives readers a behind the scenes glimpse at life in Japan in the immediate aftermath of the war.
Highly recommended.
Premise/plot: Hanako and her brother Akira are traveling to Japan with their parents. It will be the first time they meet their grandparents. There will be many, many firsts both on the journey by ship, the train ride to Hiroshima, and life in a small country village. The year is 1946; Hanako’s family is one of hundreds that have renounced their American citizenship. (The parents have—not the children, at least in this case.) Hanako thought any life outside the camps (internment camps) would be an improvement. One thing the family has in abundance love and affection. There is a sweet, tender, compassionate side to all the relationships. The two children love, love, love their grandfather and grandmother. It is mutual. These two grandparents have been unconditionally loving them since they were born. But there are many, many hardships—namely lack of food. There isn’t enough food to feed six people. Even if everyone works every day all day. Hunger is ever present and it gnaws at the family’s hope. It is important for them all that the children hold onto hope. Is there a future for them all in Japan? Is Japan the place the family belongs? Or is America still home despite the way they were treated?
My thoughts: What a tender and compelling read! Hanako touched me and I believe she’ll touch you too. What I loved most about her was her heart. She is kind, generous, thoughtful, sensitive to others. She is the model of empathy. And not in a goody two shoes way. She sees how the war—particularly the dropping of the atomic bomb has devastated a community and impacted so many. She sees the pain and seeks to do something—anything, even if it’s just a small gesture.
I also loved the family as a whole. Unconditional love, sacrificial love, selfless love. There was just something lovely and tender yet bittersweet as well. I just wanted to hug all the characters.
The book is character-driven. It told a story that I was unfamiliar with and found fascinating. I had no idea that some families chose to leave America and “return” to Japan after the war. I had no idea that many later hired a lawyer to fight on their behalf to have their citizenships reinstated. Did the families truly choose or were they pressured to renounce? The book also gives readers a behind the scenes glimpse at life in Japan in the immediate aftermath of the war.
Highly recommended.
October 21, 2019
I have read several books about Japanese internment camps during WWII. This book continues the story of some of those who were in those camps. I hadn't realized that some of the families ended up being sent back to Japan. Hanako is the daughter in one of those families. I appreciated the knowledge it gave me of what life was like in Japan immediately after the war ended. The book is set near Hiroshima and so readers also saw the aftermath of the nuclear bomb that fell on the city. The story was bleak without a lot of hope. What was beautiful was the relationship that Hanako gained with her grandparents. It was both touching and also sad. I found myself pondering, along with Hanako, about the desire to be generous and share with others when you have so little yourselves. What a challenging time in history.
June 15, 2020
This story follows 12-year-old Hanako and her Japanese-American family as they are freed from Japanese internment camps and decide to return to Hiroshima after the United States dropped the atomic bomb. When they return, they have basically nothing, the children struggle with their Japanese, and they’re so very hungry. At least when they were in the internment camps, they were given food! It’s a thoughtful look at America as they attempt to weigh the positive and negative sides to our country’s role in WWII and their treatment of Japanese-Americans. I learned a great deal and hope this one will make it into many middle grade libraries in 2020. My only criticism might be that it’s a bit long for middle grade.
For more children's literature, middle grade literature, and YA literature reviews, feel free to visit my personal blog at The Miller Memo!
For more children's literature, middle grade literature, and YA literature reviews, feel free to visit my personal blog at The Miller Memo!
August 5, 2020
I seem to be drawn to these "what came next" books at the moment. Rather than dwelling on the bomb that dropped on Hiroshima to end WWII, this book is the story of one of the American Japanese families in the days following the war. After being interred in sometimes harsh camps as Nikkei during the war, many were forced to renounce their American citizenship and go to live in Japan. In the case of 12 year old Hanako - this was a place that was foreign to her. While she loved meeting her grandparents, life was quite different, much harder and the line between right and wrong was sometimes very blurred.
A thoughtful and interesting read about a difficult time through the eyes of a young girl struggling to find where she should stand.
A thoughtful and interesting read about a difficult time through the eyes of a young girl struggling to find where she should stand.
March 28, 2020
This was a tough book to read. Hanako has spent the last four years in an internment camp. She and her family lost their restaurant in Los Angeles, and were sent to a series of camps after the United States entered WWII. Now the war is over and her parents have renounced their US citizenship. They are headed back to Japan, to her grandparents' small farm outside Hiroshima. Hanako doesn't feel Japanese compared to the people around her, and she doesn't feel American after life in the camps. Life is hard for everyone trying to put their lives back together after the war. Recommended for grades 5 & up.
April 26, 2023
"Hanako had lost things, but she had already gained things, and she was ready to chase her future. She was scared, but she felt braver than she ever had before".
This is a very thought provoking story of a Japanese American family imprisoned and then forced to return to a village just outside Hiroshima as as result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The author does a wonderful job of weaving together a story full of heart and grit as well as presenting the many interesting aspects of Japanese culture and language. Wonderful!
This is a very thought provoking story of a Japanese American family imprisoned and then forced to return to a village just outside Hiroshima as as result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor. The author does a wonderful job of weaving together a story full of heart and grit as well as presenting the many interesting aspects of Japanese culture and language. Wonderful!
October 1, 2019
This book broke my heart into a million pieces. Profound. My nephew (6th grade) keeps wanting to see Grave of the Fireflies but he's also simultaneously afraid it will be too sad for him. This book might be the first step toward that. Such a powerful story about grandparents and grandchildren, and the uncertainty of the future in the aftermath of a devastating war.
January 31, 2021
I listened to this as an audiobook, which was a great experience. I could hear the Japanese names and terms prpnpunced correctly as well as the different characters' voices.
I knew a little bit about America's treatment of Japanese Americans after WWII, but this story taught me more through the journey and experiences of Hanako's family.
I knew a little bit about America's treatment of Japanese Americans after WWII, but this story taught me more through the journey and experiences of Hanako's family.
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