Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata was the 2005 Newbery winner. I did like this book, but not as much as I wanted to. I couldn’t really put my finger on why until I thought that maybe it was because there felt like just a little too much going on in the book.
Katie and her sister Lynn spent their first few years in Iowa where their parents ran an Asian market. The family ends up moving to Georgia where their uncle says he can get their parents jobs working at a chicken hatchery. The two work extremely hard with very little benefit, and the workers start thinking about a union. Meanwhile, Lynn and Katie struggle to fit in at school and then Lynn becomes sick with anemia and perhaps something worse.
While I was interested in the story, all of the book’s themes put together were perhaps a bit too much. It was a good book, but I was hoping for something a little more (or less as the case may be).
“The place I like best in this world is the kitchen.”
I didn’t quite get to Kitchen for the Japanese Challenge, but I’m still glad I read it shortly afterwards. I liked the book, but I didn’t love it.
Food and kitchens play a central role int he book, but it’s essentially about two people finding their way through the grief process. Mikage has recently lost her grandmother, whom she lived with, and her friend Yoichi and his mother Eriko take her in. Yoichi ends up losing someone close to him as well, and the bond between the two of them becomes even closer.
Note: This book has been added as one of the new titles in the latest edition of the 1001 list.
1988, 1993 for the English translation;105 pp. 4/5
I read Kristin Lavransdatter I: The Wreath at this time last year. I also read the first half of the second book at that time but have just now finished it. I only put it down because I had some challenges and arcs to finish, not because I wasn’t enjoying it. Now that I needed a ‘U’ author, a classic, and a Nobel laureate for challenges, it was time to get back to it!
In this second volume, Kristin goes to Husaby with her husband to begin their new life together. She soon finds out marriage and motherhood can be exhausting, especially with her own family so far away. She has quite a few children and all the while struggles with past mistakes and new ones. Her faith is a comfort to her but she desperately misses her own family, especially her father. Finally she gets to go home when her younger sister gets married. Although elated to see Lavrans, there is also a bit of a strain put on their relationship which pains Kristin greatly.
There is a lot more to Kristin’s story that I’m not willing to spoil for you. Let’s just say I’m excited to read Volume III and complete the saga.
Sigrid Undset won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1928, primarily for this trilogy. Kristin Lavransdatter is a book I highly recommend to you if you love classics or want to know more about Norway and/or this time period (the 1300s). It is a fascinating look at a woman with a strong Christian faith but one who is far, far away from being perfect.
1921, 401 pp.
Rating: 4.5/5
Isn’t this a cute cover?! I just love it. Keeper and Kid by Edward Hardy is about a single dad trying to be a father to a 3 year-old child he never even knew he had. It’s about the shock one gets with a child when one realizes your life will never be your own again. It’s also about how our lives are made even richer for it. Struggling to make his job and his relationships work with a new child in his life, James Keeper is just overwhelmed with it all. But little Leo is so cute and says the cutest things. Children are like that. They frustrate and inspire simultaneously. I enjoyed reading this book about child rearing and relationships from a man’s perspective, though the language was a bit strong for my tastes. I’d be interested in reading the sequel if the author decides to write one.
Definition: Mourner’s Kaddish expresses love of God and acceptance of God’s will, even while the mourner is feeling sorrow over the death of a loved one. [See the actual English translation at the end of this review.]
Nobel laureate Imre Kertesz, survivor of both Auschwitz and Buchenwald, is a brilliant writer. As I was reading this short work, I found that I wanted to quote almost the entire book for this review. In the story, a man at a writer’s conference explains to a colleague why he refused his ex-wife a child because he doesn’t want to bring a child into a world where an Auschwitz is allowed to occur. In fact the very first word of the novel is “No,” a reference to a question on whether or not he has children. He then expounds on his reasons for that decision, and on his childhood, his marriage, and his survival experiences.
“No!” something screamed, howled within me, immediately and forthwith, and it was only gradually, after many, many years had quieted it down, that my cramp gave way to a quiet but persistent pain, until slowly and maliciously, like a malignant sickness, a question began to take distinct shape with me: “Were you to be a dark-eyed little girl? With pale spots of scattered freckles around your little nose? Or a stubborn boy? With cheerful, hard eyes like blue-gray pebbbles?” Yes, my existence in the context of your potentiality.
I’ve had family members also question the wisdom of bringing children into the world, and the first time it was put to me, I didn’t understand the reasoning behind this stance at all. Perhaps I was too naive then, though, because I do understand it now. I am a mother; I’m grateful to be a mother; but, unfortunately, there is much evil in this world, and while not my choice, I understand why people would question whether to subject their potential children to it.
1990, [1999 for English trans.], 95 pp.
Rating: 4.5/5
English Translation of the Mourner’s Kaddish
May His illustrious name become increasingly great and holy
In the world that He created according to His will,
and may He establish His kingdom
In your lifetime and in your days
and in the lifetime of all the house of Israel
Speedily and soon. And let us say amen.
May His illustrious name be blessed always and forever.
Blessed, praised, glorified, exalted, extolled
Honoured, raised up and acclaimed
be the name of the Holy one blessed be He
beyond every blessing hymn, praise and consolation
that is uttered in the world. And let us say amen.
May abundant peace from heaven, and life
Be upon us and upon all Israel.
This is the story of 14 year-old Jutka’s life before, during, and after World War II, with the three sections of the book dealing with those periods being titled Limbo, Hell, and Paradiso.
The story is heart-wrenching. We see how her friends and neighbors turn from loving her family to despising them. We see the horrors of the ghetto, Auschwitz, and the DP camps. Then we see Jutka and her friends struggle to find a new home for themselves when nothing is left of their old ones. While most want to relocate to Israel, Jutka dreams of being with her relatives in Canada.
The story is compelling, but I did find the writing to be a bit simplistic and choppy, thus the lower rating.
Kanada’s author, Eva Wiseman, was born in Hungary and has based this book on her parents’ and other friends’ experiences during the war. She now lives in Winnipeg.
The Kite Runner by Khalded Hosseini starts out beautifully:
I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.
The description Amir tells of his childhood in Afghanistan is mesmerizing. Wanting to please his father, playing (and taunting) his friend/servant Hassan, dealing with the neighborhood boys. The first half of the book is very, very strong. However, the last third of the book I felt was too contrived, too formulaic, and too coincidental. I still became very emotional at times, but the ‘wow’ factor for me was gone. There were just too many coincidences in the end to make it a believable story. Overall, though, I did enjoy it, and I’m looking forward to seeing the movie adaptation. I’ll also be reading A Thousand Splendid Suns in 2008.
2003, 371 pp.
Rating: 4
The Wreath is Book 1 in Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, a Norwegian Nobel laureate. I had this book down as one I wanted to read in 2007 since last January! The size of it (all 3 books together are 1100+ pages) intimidated me so much that I’m just now getting to Book 1.
In The Wreath, we learn of Kristin’s childhood and her relationship to her family and her community. She grows up in a home where her father adores her, and while her mother loves her very much, she is also sad much of the time due to multiple miscarriages. The descriptions of the farm life and scenes of 14th century Norway are simply fantastic. The book really has a sense of place and time.
The next two books are The Wife (which I’m halfway through) and The Cross. I really wish now that I had started earlier so that I could have completed the entire book in 2007. I’m anxious to see what will happen in Kristin’s life.
The Known World by Edward P. Jones has not only won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the NBCC Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
Jones really knows how to write his characters. Each one was very clearly defined. I won’t give away too much of the story here but will write a brief overview.
Henry and Caldonia Townsend are slave owners who are black themselves. Henry’s father had freed himself and his wife, and then later Henry. While Henry was still a slave under William Robbins, he became somewhat of a favorite, and was later instructed by Robbins on how to be a proper slave owner. Henry builds up quite a plantation but then dies unexpectedly. How Caldonia, along with her overseer Moses, runs the plantation afterward forms the rest of the novel.
Several issues are presented in the book. Whites’ attitudes towards blacks, both slave and free; the function of “the law;” men’s attitudes towards women (and vice versa); and the question of how and why blacks could own slaves themselves.
This is a very well-written book, and I struggled on whether to rate it a 4 or 4.5. There is some content in the book that downgrades it slightly for me. Consider it a very high 4.
Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata was the 2005 Newbery winner. I did like this book, but not as much as I wanted to. I couldn’t really put my finger on why until I thought that maybe it was because there felt like just a little too much going on in the book.
by Cynthia Kadohata was the 2005 Newbery winner. I did like this book, but not as much as I wanted to. I couldn’t really put my finger on why until I thought that maybe it was because there felt like just a little too much going on in the book.
I read 
Isn’t this a cute cover?! I just love it. Keeper and Kid by Edward Hardy is about a single dad trying to be a father to a 3 year-old child he never even knew he had. It’s about the shock one gets with a child when one realizes your life will never be your own again. It’s also about how our lives are made even richer for it. Struggling to make his job and his relationships work with a new child in his life, James Keeper is just overwhelmed with it all. But little Leo is so cute and says the cutest things. Children are like that. They frustrate and inspire simultaneously. I enjoyed reading this book about child rearing and relationships from a man’s perspective, though the language was a bit strong for my tastes. I’d be interested in reading the sequel if the author decides to write one.
This is the story of 14 year-old Jutka’s life before, during, and after World War II, with the three sections of the book dealing with those periods being titled Limbo, Hell, and Paradiso.
The Wreath is Book 1 in Kristin Lavransdatter by Sigrid Undset, a Norwegian Nobel laureate. I had this book down as one I wanted to read in 2007 since last January! The size of it (all 3 books together are 1100+ pages) intimidated me so much that I’m just now getting to Book 1.
The Known World by Edward P. Jones has not only won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, but also the NBCC Award and the International IMPAC Dublin Literary Award.
