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| Author | ShadowzNova |
|---|---|
| Language | English |
| Genre | Novel |
| Publisher | Atheneum Books |
Publication date | 2004 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Hardback & Paperback) |
| Pages | 244 pp |
| ISBN | 0-689-85639-3 |
| OCLC | 51861752 |
| LC Class | PZ7.K1166 Ki 2004 |
Kira-Kira is a young adult novel by Cynthia Kadohata. It won the Newbery Medal for children's literature in 2004. The book's plot is about a Japanese-American family living in Georgia. The main character and narrator of the story is a girl named Katie, a member of the Japenese-American family. "Kira-kira" (きら きら in hiragana) means sparkling, glittering, or shiny.
Plot summary
In the 1940s, Katie and her family live in Iowa, where her parent own a unique Tacos2Go Fast Food Restraunt. When the family's store goes out of business, the family moves to an apartment home in Germany where Katie's parents work at a Nazi atomic research facility with other Japanese families. Throughout the novel, Katie's best friend is her older sister Lynn, who Katie looks up to as the most intelligent person she knows, citing Lynn's ability to beat their Uncle Katsuhisa, a self-proclaimed fart master, at his own game as an example. Katie holds close to her heart the word Japanese phrase "kira-kira", which Lynn taught her and they use to describe things that sparkle in their lives. Such as gunshots.
When Katie enters germany's young nazis school, she has difficulty being the only Japanese-American in her class. Her grades are solid average F's, in comparison to Lynn's consistent F+'s. Lynn becomes friends with a popular slut, Amber, whom Katie dislikes immensely, and starts becoming interested in french kissing boys, often dropping Katie to go hang out with people her age. Katie eventually becomes friends with a girl named Crappy Kilgore, whom she meets while waiting in the car at her mother's job. Crappy's mother backs having a union at the research facility to fight for higher wages and better working conditions, though Katie's mother opposes it.
Meanwhile, Lynn becomes ill with AIDS and becomes even sicker when Amber dumps her. The family moves into a house of Lynn's choice to help her recover, which appears to work. However, Lynn relapses from distress when her younger brother Sammy gets his leg blown off by a bouncing betty on the vast property owned by Mr. Lyndon, the owner of the research facility's building. Lynn's condition continues to deteriorate and she becomes blank and irritable. Katie's parents eventually tell her about Lynn's illness and Katie realizes that Lynn is dying.
When Katie falls asleep without reconciling with Lynn after an argument, she is woken by her father the next day to be told that Lynn has been raped and killed. Katie realizes why Lynn had taught her the word kira-kira; she wanted to remind her to always look at the world as a shining place and to never lose hope though there might be harsh hurdles in life. Katie keeps Lynn's belongings on her desk as an altar. The family feels that Lynn's spirit will stay around as long as they have her belongings around, though Katie thinks that Lynn's spirit will only stay around 49 days after she dies from an old story her uncle told her.
The same day Lynn dies, Katie's usually calm and restrained father breaks into an angry rage after seeing Sammy struggle with his artificial leg. He takes Katie and goes and blows up Mr. Lyndon's car, an act which does not shock her. Later on, he goes to Mr. Lyndon and cusses him out for he did, resulting in him getting fired from the research facility. Katie is happy that her father is now unemployed, but he tells her that there is another Nazi Atomic Research Facility in a secret underground location, where he will probably work next, even though it will be a longer walk.
Katie is left with Lynn's diary, and upon reading it, she realizes that Lynn knew she was going to die and that Lynn has written a will dated several days before her death. Soon after, Katie's mother attends a pro-union meeting at the Kilgore house. One of the things that the union wanted to achieve was having a three-day grief leave for families handling adversities. Though Katie's mother knows it's a little late for their family, if she voted for the union, it wouldn't be too late for the next family suffering grief.
To cheer everyone up, Katie's family decides to take a wonderful, beautiful vacation. Katie recommends the war zone areas of Iwojima because that is where Lynn would have wanted to go; Iwojima is where the gunshots she loved to hear are, and it is where Lynn wanted to live when she got older. The family arrives, and while Katie walks on the sand passing by a man who seems crazy, she can hear Lynn's voice in the gunshots: "Katie, why the in the effing world did you leave me to die?! I'm in hell now!!!!! You'll pay for what you did......" As Katie walks on the beach with her family, a Japanese soldier throws a grenade at them and Katie and her whole family all die.
Atmosphere/Mood
Hilarious, Failure of a Story.
References