Cynthia Kadohata Books In Order

Floating World

‘Maks the debut of a luminious new voice in fiction.’THE NEW YORK TIMESOlivia, the young narrator of this beautiful novel, and her Japanese American family are constantly on the road, looking for a home in the 1950s. Then traveling becomes a kind of home, a place for her parents to work out their difficulties, in towns that barely linger in memory, hanging in the air among them as the part of a family history that reaches further back than they care to recall, but can’t help remembering…
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In the Heart of the Valley of Love

Cynthia Kadohata explores human relationships in a Los Angeles of the future, where rich and poor are deeply polarized and where water, food, and gas, not to mention education, cannot be taken for granted. There is an intimate, understated, even gentle quality to Kadohata’s writingthis is not an apocalyptic dystopiathat makes it difficult to shrug off the version of the future embodied in her book.

The Glass Mountains

Mariska couldn’t be happier. Living an almost fairy-tale life, she is popular, adored by her parents, and is engaged to be married to the most attractive man in her village. But her world is torn when war approaches the peaceful village of Bakshami. Mariska risks everything she has in order to search for her parents who left to negotiate and find peace. With a young warrior as her companion, she travels beyond the safety of her village. Together they search for Mariska’s parents and peace for their village in a time of terrible uncertainty.

Kira-Kira

kira kira kee’ ra kee’ ra: glittering; shining Glittering. That’s how Katie Takeshima’s sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. The sky is kira kira because its color is deep but see through at the same time. The sea is kira kira for the same reason. And so are people’s eyes. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it’s Lynn who explains to her why people stop them on the street to stare. And it’s Lynn who, with her special way of viewing the world, teaches Katie to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them all that there is always something glittering kira kira in the future. Luminous in its persistence of love and hope, Kira Kira is Cynthia Kadohata’s stunning debut in middle grade fiction.

Weedflower

Twelve year old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to.

That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United States! As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new ‘home.’

Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they’d been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend…
if he can ever stop being angry about the fact that the internment camp is on his tribe’s land.

With searing insight and clarity, Newbery Medal winning author Cynthia Kadohata explores an important and painful topic through the eyes of a young girl who yearns to belong. Weedflower is the story of the rewards and challenges of a friendship across the racial divide, as well as the based on real life story of how the meeting of Japanese Americans and Native Americans changed the future of both.

Cracker!

CRACKER IS ONE OF THE UNITED STATES ARMY’S MOST VALUABLE WEAPONS:

a German shepherd trained to sniff out bombs, traps, and the enemy. The fate of entire platoons rests on her keen sense of smell. She’s a Big Deal, and she likes it that way. Sometimes Cracker remembers when she was younger, and her previous owner would feed her hot dogs and let her sleep in his bed. That was nice, too.

Rick Hanski is headed to Vietnam. There, he’s going to whip the world and prove to his family and his sergeant and everyone else who didn’t think he was cut out for war wrong. But sometimes Rick can’t help but wonder that maybe everyone else is right. Maybe he should have just stayed at home and worked in his dad’s hardware store.

When Cracker is paired with Rick, she isn’t so sure about this new owner. He’s going to have to prove himself to her before she’s going to prove herself to him. They need to be friends before they can be a team, and they have to be a team if they want to get home alive.

Told in part through the uncanny point of view of a German shepherd, Cracker! is an action packed glimpse into the Vietnam War as seen through the eyes of a dog and her handler. It’s an utterly unique powerhouse of a book by the Newbery Medal winning author of Kira Kira.

Outside Beauty

There’s only one way Shelby and her sisters can describe their mother: She’s a sexpot. Helen Kimura collects men and loans, spending money, and gifts of all kinds from all over the country. Sure, she’s not your typical role model, but she’s also not just a pretty face and nail polish. She is confident and brave; she lives life on her own terms, and her four daughters simply adore her. These girls have been raised outside the traditional boundaries. They know how to take the back exit. They know how to dodge crazed lovers in highway car chases. They do not, however, know how to function without one another.

Then suddenly they must. A late night phone call unexpectedly shreds the family apart, catapulting the girls across the country to live with their respective fathers. But these strong willed sisters are, like their mother, determined to live life on their own terms, and what they do to pull their family back together is nothing short of beautiful.

At turns wickedly funny and insistently thought provoking, Outside Beauty showcases Cynthia Kadohata’s unerring ability to explore the bonds that bind.

A Million Shades of Gray

Y’Tin is brave. No one in his village denies that his mother may wish that he d spend more time on school work than on elephant training, but still she knows that it takes a great deal of courage and calm to deal with elephants the way that Y’Tin does. He is almost the best trainer in the village and, at twelve years old, he’s certainly the youngest. Maybe he ll even open up his own school some day to teach other Montagnards how to train wild elephants? That was the plan anyway back before American troops pulled out of the Vietnam War, back before his village became occupied by Viet Cong forces seeking revenge, back before Y’Tin watched his life change in a million terrible ways. Now, his bravery is truly put to the test: he can stay in his village, held captive by the Viet Cong or he can risk his life and save his elephant s by fleeing into the jungle. The Montagnards know their surroundings well. After all, this is why Y’Tin s village had become loyal US allies during the war, having been tapped by Special Forces for their tracking skills and familiarity with the jungle. But that also means that Y’Tin knows how unsafe it can be and how much danger he is in if he chooses to head out with no destination in mind. At once heartbreaking and full of hope, Newbery Medal winning author Cynthia Kadohata s exploration into the depth of the jungle and the not so distant past brings us close to a world few people know about and none will ever forget. Y’Tin s story is one of lasting friendships, desperate choices and all that we lose when we are forced to change.