Weedflower

I really enjoyed reading Weedflower by Newbery Award winning author Cynthia Kadohata. She won the award for Kira-Kira, which I also read and highly recommend. I have been suggesting students read Weedflower but hadn't read it yet myself until this week. I learned a lot about the Japanese internment during the second world war.

Can you imagine being forced to leave your home and shipped off to live in the stables of a racetrack? And having to stuff your own mattress with straw? Or being moved again to live in military barracks in the middle of an Indian reservation? This story is not only based on true events, it is the real-life story of the author's father and tens of thousands of Japanese and Japanese-Americans.

The story is told from the perspective of twelve-year-old Sumiko or "Weedflower" as her new Mohave Indian friend, Frank names her. She used to live with her family in California working on the family's flower farm dreaming of the day when she would have her own flower market. She has a special care-giving relationship with her younger brother, Tak-Tak similar to Shannon in Jackie's Wild Seattle. In addition to Frank, Sumiko also becomes friends with an old snake eating man and a liar while in Poston, Arizona, the hottest and dustiest place in the United States.