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.

Author: Cynthia Kadohata
Publisher: Atheneum Books for Young Readers
Published: 04/01/2006
Pages: 272
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.02lbs
Size: 8.53h x 5.82w x 1.02d
ISBN: 9780689865749
Audience: Ages 9-12

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 4.8
Point Value: 7
Interest Level: Middle Grade
Quiz #/Name: 104757 / Weedflower


Award: Bluebonnet Awards - Nominee
Award: Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award - Nominee
Award: Charlie May Simon Children's Book Award - Nominee
Award: Iowa Children's Choice (ICCA) Award - Nominee
Award: Nene Award - Recommended
Award: Massachusetts Children's Book Award - Nominee
Award: Jane Addams Children's Book Award - Winner
Award: Beehive Awards - Nominee
Award: Young Hoosier Book Award - Nominee
Award: Cybils - Finalist


Review Citation(s):
Voice of Youth Advocates 02/01/2006 pg. 487 - Recommended - Readable
Publishers Weekly 02/27/2006 pg. 62
Kliatt 03/01/2006 pg. 12
Kirkus Review - Children 03/15/2006 pg. 293
Bulletin of Ctr for Child Bks 06/01/2006 pg. 458 - Recommended
School Library Journal 07/01/2006 pg. 106
Horn Book Magazine 07/01/2006 pg. 443
Multicultural Review 12/01/2006 pg. 87
Hornbook Guide to Children 07/01/2006 pg. 362 - Superior,Well Above Average

About the Author
Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Medal-winning book Kira-Kira, the National Book Award winner The Thing About Luck, the Jane Addams Peace Award and PEN America Award winner Weedflower, Cracker!, Outside Beauty, A Million Shades of Gray, Half a World Away, Checked, A Place to Belong, Saucy, and several critically acclaimed adult novels, including The Floating World. She lives with her dog and hockey-playing son in California. Visit her online at CynthiaKadohata.com.