Found Not Lost

I love Christmas break, it seems I get a lot of reading in around this time. I read two full length novels this week, courtesy of my daughter Asi:

Will of the Empress by Tamora Pierce

This is the latest installment on the Circle of Magic series that Asi got me hooked on this year. So far, we’ve gone through the Circle of Magic quartet and we, well just me really, are working on the Circle Opens quartet. This whole series is about a group of four young mages who have different ambient skills, following their development as they grow with their magic. In this latest edition, Will of the Empress, Sandry is lured back to Namorn by her cousin the empress in hopes of keeping her and her vast fortune in the kingdom. This adventure is the first the four have shared since leaving Winding Circle to pursue their individual adventures which are recounted in the Circle Opens quartet. They have grown into young adults, no longer the children that they were at Winding Circle, their school of magic. They have experienced adversities that helped form who they are becoming as mages and young adults, but always they share a common, albeit invisible bond keeping them entwined in each others lives. They prove in this book that their individual powers is even made stronger when they put them together. Together, they almost seem invincible. Invincible mages they may be, but Tamora Pierce does not forget that they are foremost teenagers with their owns angsts and growing pains.

Eragon by Christopher Paolini

The second book that Asi introduced me to is Eragon by Christopher Paolini. If this is a preview of what this young author is capable of, then I can’t wait to see what he comes up with next. Well, actually, he already has come up with the sequel, thank goodness, Elder is now out, the second book in the trilogy. Christopher Paolini started writing Eragon when he was only fifteen. What a scary model to throw at my daughters!
Eragon is about the adventures of a young man, Eragon, who finds a dragon’s egg and discovers a whole other world opening up to him. He thought he was nothing but a lowly farmboy abandoned by his parents to be raised by his uncle in a small mountain town. With the discovery of the egg and its hatchling, Saphira, the dragon, Eragon is catapulted into a world of magic, dwarves, elves, and urgals. He finds out he is a dragon rider, and what starts out as a voyage of vengeance (to avenge the death of his uncle) is slowly evolving into a larger purpose as he learns more and matures during this voyage. A great read, I could hardly put down and devoured it in a couple of days. I’m so glad it was Christmas break

Glittering. As a child, Katie Takeshima was taught that everything was glittering or kira-kira. Lynn Takeshima was her older sister, best friend, and guardian angel. Katie described her sister as someone who “could take a simple everyday objects like a box of Kleenex and use it to prove how amazing the world is. She could prove this in many ways, with Kleenex or soap bubbles or maybe even a blade of grass.” Cynthia Kadohata takes lessons like these and brings them to life in her novel, kira-kira.
When Katie was much younger she could always count on her sister. To love her more than anyone, to care for her when no one else could. But not to long after their family moved from the wide open spaces of Iowa to Georgia, embedded in the deep south, things changed…for the both of them. When a popular Caucasian girl “breaks ranks” and becomes Lynn’s new best friend, Katie can’t seem to count on her sister like she used to. And as Lynn’s sickness becomes worse it seems like Lynn is the one having to depend on Katie. Lynn is diagnosed with anemia, causing fatigue and pallor and fatigue, and also with lymphoma, a malignant tumor that arises in the lymph nodes or in other lymphoid tissue. Katie’s parents both work extensive hours, sometimes even staying overnight. The only time they are home or away from work is when they spend time sleeping, resting, or dealing with Lynn’s medical problems. So Katie was left to take care of her ailing sister and young brother.
When the family realizes how serious Lynn’s problems are their parents decide to finally buy a new house. Already the house seems to be making her better. But to Katie this doesn’t seem to be their house but Lynn’s house. But alas this doesn’t last for long. When Lynn is feeling better the three children go on a picnic, but when trouble strikes, their little brother needs to be rushed to a hospital. This seems to bring everyone back to reality and cause Lynn to spiral downward back into serious sickness. Throughout the book, Lynn’s struggle continues, and Katie must learn to deal with her many responsibilities.
Cynthia Kadohata was born in Chicago, 1956. Her family moved to Georgia, where her father became a chicken sexer. Much of the small tidbits in her story were mirrored from her own life and personal experiences. Another anecdote, taken from her own life was the scene where Katie and her dad go to Pepe’s for tacos. Katie, like Cynthia ate five tacos. Ms. Kadohata’s record was six tacos. Her family was amazed and somewhat horrified. Nowadays however, Cynthia, says, she only eats three tacos at one sitting. The first piece of writing Cynthia ever attempted to publish, was a short story she called, “The One-Legged Ducks.” The story was about a planet inhabited by ducks with only one leg each. However, when she sent this to a well-known magazine that published the best short stories in the country, she was denied.
Kira-Kira is a historical fiction novel, because of its relation to the era in which it was written. In the beginning it states this time, and you expect a plethora of things to happen. This is gives you the idea that the significance of the book will be prejudice and segregation. But the wonderful part of this book is that the binding of the times doesn’t keep it from spinning a story about so many other things. Along with these issues, but without letting it becomes the main idea of the story. But the main significance of the novel was, how even though there is so much sadness and hardships in life, and times when you feel like you can never move on, you can always make it through. You just have to pick yourself up and try again. You can’t let yourself be afraid to live. One of the worst things that can happen is to lose someone, but the worst thing of all is to lose yourself. This novel was wrapped with so much sadness, and all of the issues in today’s society, but also, hope, and happiness, and comfort, and helping each other.
Kira-Kira is a somewhat hard book to judge. The sadness, emptiness and incomplete feeling made you dislike it. But something about it in general caused you to love it, and maybe even make it your favorite book. This fact made the reader think they disliked it for quite a while, but while you sleep on it, the gist of the whole story comes back to you. It subconsciously grows on you. And when it does this it causes you to rethink the story. Especially good for a book project or review, because that in turn causes you to analyze it more deeply, making it a great choice to read for projects like this. And don’t worry, it’s not the kind of thinking, and analyzing that might give you a headache, its just a natural process that occurs when you read it or when your mind just drifts into that spot.
Kira-Kira was just a sweet and subtle and romantic “parody.” Cynthia Kadohata’s airy, deep reasoning’s portrayed by her characters were perfect. Her imagery was so vivid, but so quiet you hardly noticed it. Her description of the times, helped along the creation of the scenes as well. Overall the book was not what I expected, which was nice. It kept me turning the pages the whole time. At first, when it tells you the specific era, around 1950-1960, and how a Japanese family moves to Georgia deep down South, there are a lot of things coming to your mind; the segregation, riots, violence. But surprisingly so, not much of this occurred. So lots of the key points/landmarks in the book were interesting. Kira-Kira is, witty, smart, touching, and a genuine find. I loved this book.

Cynthia Kadohata is a second-generation Japanese-American who like her main character Katie, grew up in the South, first in Georgia then Arkansas. She confesses to having such a thick southern accent like Katie that when she first traveled out of Arkansas, people had a hard time understanding her. She graduated with a degree in Journalism from the University of Southern California. Kira-kira, her first children’s book, which borrows heavily from her personal experiences, is the 2005 recipient of the Newbery Medal for the most distinguished children’s book of the year.

Kira-Kira is a story about the coming-of-age of Katie Takeshima whose journey begins with the life-changing move her family made from Iowa to Georgia. Woven throughout the story is the relationship between Katie and her older sister Lynn who taught her her first word and first life lesson, kira-kira. Kira-Kira in Japanese means glittering or shimmering. Katie used it to describe anything and everything that made her happy. Although you get the feeling straight from the first chapter of the book that Lynn, the older sister dies, you also get the sense that amid the sadness, kira-kira will shine through.

This book is smartly written and holds the intelligence of young readers and their capacity to see life as it really is, in highest regard. Ms. Kadohata is excellent at painting a picture of the setting; the 50’s in the South amid poverty, racism, and the close knit Japanese community. The reader, of any age, is transported and becomes emotionally involved in the story. The descriptions were so vivid that at times I could feel the sensations described. I can almost feel the warmth left over on the asphalt road as the sisters lie on their backs staring at the kira-kira of the evening stars. I could feel myself suffocating reading about Katie and her little brother Sam sitting in the car in the sweltering Georgia heat as their mother finished a shift and a half in a chicken processing plant. I felt embarrassment for the mother and for Katie as I could imagine the stench of urine in the car from the pad her mother is forced to wear because the non-union plant she worked for did not allow bathroom breaks as needed.

As a parent, I can empathize with the parent’s desire to provide for their children even at the expense of sacrificing the time spent with them. Because I read the book from the point of view of a parent, the incident with Mr. Lyndon is especially memorable because it is a testament to the ability of our children to make better people of us. Many people think that parenting is a one-way street, wisdom passing from parent to child. Truth is, parenting is just as much a learning experience for parents as it is for kids. Katie’s father broke his employer’s, Mr. Lyndon’s, car window out of anger and grief, and he could have gotten away with it. No one witnessed his act except for his daughter Katie. Mr. Lyndon may as well have been witness to the vandalism of his property. Our children are the greatest tools in keeping us honest. At the risk of losing his job, which he did, Katie’s father confessed to his crime because it was the right thing for him to do as a person and most of all as a father.

Kira-Kira is an endearing novel that had me smiling one moment and crying the next. Through all the hardship and sadness in Katie’s life, because she learned kira-kira early on, she had the strength to overcome life’s trials of the greatest magnitude and yet still see the shimmer. Kira-kira means there will always be something in life to make you happy. Kira-kira means hope.

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