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National Book Foundation > Author > Cynthia Kadohata
Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Medal-winning book Kira-Kira, the National Book Award–winning novel The Thing About Luck, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award and PEN USA Award-winning Weedflower, and the critically acclaimed Half a World Away, Cracker!, Outside Beauty, A Million Shades of Gray, Checked, and several adult novels. More about this author >
World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken. America, the only home she’s ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family—and thousands of other innocent Americans—because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. More about this book >
Summer knows that kouun means “good luck” in Japanese, and this year her family has none of it. Just when she thinks nothing else can possibly go wrong, an emergency whisks her parents away to Japan—right before harvest season. Summer and her little brother, Jaz, are left in the care of their grandparents, who come out of retirement in order to harvest wheat and help pay the bills. More about this book >
Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Kira-Kira, the National Book Award–winning novel The Thing About Luck, the Jane Addams Children’s Book Award and PEN Center USA Award winner Weedflower, Cracker!, Outside Beauty, A Million Shades of Gray, Half a World Away, and several critically acclaimed adult novels, including The Floating World. She lives with her son and dog in West Covina, California.