Kira Kira
This week for my reading log, I read Kira Kira by Cynthia Kadohota as my multi-cultrual. The book talks about a Japanese family struggling to live in America. The three children: Katie, Lynn, and Sammy are living in Georgia and there their parents work almost non-stop. Lynn gets sick with anemia and suddenly, the tranquility that the family had been experiencing was broken. Their parents had to start working almost non-stop just to be able to pay the mortgage as well as Lynn’s ever-increasing medical bills.
Kira Kira, though not the most complex and advanced book I’ve read, it still conveys a powerful meaning within it’s sometimes run-on sentences and use of simple words. The main lesson that was taught in the book was that you should never take anything for granted. Lynn tried to live her life to the fullest and when she died, she was at peace with the world. I was surprised at Lynn because if I was her, I would be bitter because of what was happening to me. Why would I, someone who has never done anything bad, have to suffer so miserably? Lynn was never particularly upset in the book, or she never showed her feelings to her family. Another lesson that was taught in this book was that family, is probably the only solid foundation that you have to fall back on. For example, in the book, Lynn was friends with a girl named Amber, but she ended up being someone that was plastic and superficial, and she dropped her as a friend. If I was Lynn, I would have been devastated at a loss of a friend, but instead, Lynn didn’t really care. She had her family, and that was all that she really needed to live a bountiful life. There was also a more subtle lesson in this book; it was that one person is never going to be the only foundation. That may sound kind of cryptic, so an example from the book was that Lynn relied on Katie and Katie relied on Lynn. Another lesson from the book is that one should never let their anger affect their judgement. For example, in the book, Katie’s dad was angry at Sammy’s limp, so he went to Mr. Lyndon’s house and smashed the window in his car.
When I was reading this book, I felt many different and contradicting emotions. After reading the first few chapters of the book, I thought that Lynn was an awesome big sister and that I wished that my brother could be like her, but as the book progressed, Lynn began to show the signs of the ‘teenager syndrome.‘ The ‘teenager syndrome’ is the name that I thought of for the different phases that teenagers go through as they age. Some of the phases include rebellion, making new friends that aren’t such good friends, getting interested in the opposite gender, and dropping friends all of the sudden. I was surprised when she started treating Katie like a little kid because I thought Lynn was different. I thought that Lynn would break away from the ‘big sister’ mold and think of Katie as an equal instead of a subordinate, but I was wrong. When Lynn was diagnosed with lymphoma, instead of feeling sad, I felt a little bit happy, because since she was diagnosed with lymphoma, she knew she was going to die. Lynn no longer had to live a life where she never knew what was going to happen, and if I was Lynn, I would feel relieved that my parents wouldn’t have to put up with me much longer. I’m sure that his wasn’t the emotion that the author was trying to provoke, but books can be interpreted in different ways.
Since Kira Kira is a multi-cultural book, and since I’m a person coming from two different cultures, there are some things in this book that I can really relate to. One of these things was the segregation that Katie and her family faced in their new town. My parents said when we first moved here (I was still in my mother’s womb), that the job opportunities weren’t as bountiful as compared to their old home in New York. I found this strange, because Fremont is mostly populated by the minorities, but then again, the dominant race in the United States has always been Caucasian, no matter how much people don’t want to admit it; prejudice is still alive and well in our modern society. Though the United States was meant to be a sort of ‘melting pot’ it is currently a sort of like a mashed potatoes with many smaller side dishes (excuse the food analogy, it’s Thanksgiving!). Another thing that I can relate to is the thing that I call the ‘friendship barrier.‘ The barrier that hinders interracial friendships. One can observe the friendship barrier by just walking around school with open eyes—most of the races don’t intermix, and when they do, it’s probably a one to five ratio. I, myself, have many friends from other races, but some of my peers hang out with only their race and it irritates me. I would just like to throw a science book at them and say, “Get a reality check!“ There is nothing truly different about the different races apart from the fact that our skin is colored differently. Why should that matter? Some people just need to stop living in their ‘bubble’ and see the world as it truly is—a diverse and interesting place with many things to gain from intermixing with different cultures. I mean, I’m best friends with Theresa, who’s Indian, and I’ve learned so much about her culture from talking to her! Also, from talking to her, I’ve learned all about the different quirks of Indian culture. For example, I learned that in South India, the child sometimes takes the father’s last name as their first name. So, if my family was Indian, my name would be Alex Huajun.
Kira Kira was a surprisingly good book. I wasn’t expecting much out of it when I first started into it due to it’s simple sentence structures and it’s seemingly cliche plot, but it turned out to be a heart warming, and thought provoking book. At first, I thought the book wasn’t worthy of it’s Newberry Medal award, but I was mistaken! I’m glad I read the book because I now feel so much more grateful that my parents don’t have to work nonstop, and that I’m not sick with an incurable ailment.