Podcast Draft

Welcome!  My name is Nicole.  Today I’m going to talk about a popular young adult novel by Cynthia Kadohata called Kira-Kira.  Kira-Kira is about a Japanese-American family living in Georgia during the 1950s.  Katie, the youngest daughter of this family, is the narrator and main character of the novel.  The novel deals with serious social and personal issues in a way children can relate to.  For this reason, Kira-Kira is a great book for adults to read with children because it will help create a comfortable environment for children and adults to discuss these issues.

 One of the most obvious issues in Kira-Kira is diversity.  Katie is the only Japanese-American student in her class and she often struggles with the racial disparity she feels.  In the 1950s, racial diversity in the classroom was not as prominent as it is today.  Today, many students feel ostracized because they don’t look like their classmates.  In one scene, Katie is even called a “heathen” by an older student named Amber.  This would be a great time for parents and teachers to talk about bullying and racial diversity.  Bullying is a serious issue that some children don’t feel comfortable discussing, but Kira-Kira can create a space that discusses what physical and verbal acts cross the line into bullying.  On the other hand, this particular scene and issue in the novel can also be an opportunity to explore different cultures with students.

 The major conflict in Kira-Kira is watching Katie’s family overcome the recent death of Lynn, Katie’s older sister.  Lynn becomes sick with anemia and later dies from lymphoma.  Katie, only eleven-years-old at the time, does not understand what these diseases are and how serious the situation is.  However, it is obvious to Katie that is has negatively affected her parents and sister.  When Lynn dies, Katie realizes why her sister was so special: her unique perspective on life.  By Katie’s age, eleven-years-old, many children have experienced the loss of someone special.  There are many questions about death that we will never know the answer to, but children need a space to ask them and reach out to one another.  Death is a personal issue that some children might not feel comfortable discussing in class, but it relates to later social issues: why and when do people die, etc.

 In essence, Kira-Kira is about family and strength.  It is a book I highly recommend for discussion about serious social issues.  By reading this book with their children, parents and teachers have the opportunity to create an environment where their children can talk about these issues.  Children are extremely perceptive and they make inferences about the social issues that they see in their everyday life.  A discussion on Kira-Kira will give them a space to raise serious questions about certain social issues that can put them on a path to ending them someday.