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Overview
Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to.
That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United States! As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new "home."
Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they'd been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend...if he can ever stop being angry about the fact that the internment camp is on his tribe's land.
With searing insight and clarity, Newbery Medal-winning author Cynthia Kadohata explores an important and painful topic through the eyes of a young girl who yearns to belong. Weedflower is the story of the rewards and challenges of a friendship across the racial divide, as well as the based-on-real-life story of how the meeting of Japanese Americans and Native Americans changed the future of both.
Synopsis
Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to.
Now, other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor and Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new “home.”
Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they’d been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend….
With searing insight and clarity, Newbery Medal—winning author Cynthia Kadohata explores an important and painful topic through the eyes of a young girl who yearns to belong. Weedflower is the story of the rewards and challenges of a friendship across the racial divide, as well as the based-on-real-life story of how the meeting of Japanese Americans and Native Americans changed the future of both.
Publishers Weekly
Set in America immediately before the attack on Pearl Harbor, this insightful novel by the Newbery-winning author of Kira-Kira traces the experiences of a Japanese-American girl and her family. Sixth-grader Sumiko, the only Asian student in her class, has always felt like an outcast. Early on, a heartbreaking scene foreshadows events to come, when Sumiko arrives at a classmate's birthday party and is told by the hostess to wait outside on the porch, and is then sent away. The girl's feelings of isolation turn to fear after the United States declares war on Japan. First, government officials take away Sumiko's uncle and grandfather. Then her aunt must sell their California flower farm; they are transported to a makeshift camp and later to a Native-American reservation in Poston, Ariz. Living like a prisoner in the desert, Sumiko nearly succumbs to what her grandfather termed "ultimate boredom" ("that mean close to lose mind," he explains). But Sumiko finds hope and a form of salvation as a beautiful garden she creates and a friendship with a Native American boy, Frank, both begin to blossom. The contrast between the Native Americans' plight and that of the interned may enlighten many readers ("They take our land and put you on it. They give you electricity," snaps Frank). Kadohata clearly and eloquently conveys her heroine's mixture of shame, anger and courage. Readers will be inspired by Sumiko's determination to survive and flourish in a harsh, unjust environment. Ages 11-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.
Editorials
From Barnes & Noble
Sumiko is only 12 years old, but she can already divide her life into two distinct periods: the good times before Pearl Harbor and the bad times after. At the internment camp, which is located on a desert Indian reservation, she and her family cope with their new situation and the uncertainty of their future. Only her abundant imagination and the friendship of a young Mohave carry her through these hard times. A stirring novel about a "weedflower" caught in the hurricanes of war.Publishers Weekly
Set in America immediately before the attack on Pearl Harbor, this insightful novel by the Newbery-winning author of Kira-Kira traces the experiences of a Japanese-American girl and her family. Sixth-grader Sumiko, the only Asian student in her class, has always felt like an outcast. Early on, a heartbreaking scene foreshadows events to come, when Sumiko arrives at a classmate's birthday party and is told by the hostess to wait outside on the porch, and is then sent away. The girl's feelings of isolation turn to fear after the United States declares war on Japan. First, government officials take away Sumiko's uncle and grandfather. Then her aunt must sell their California flower farm; they are transported to a makeshift camp and later to a Native-American reservation in Poston, Ariz. Living like a prisoner in the desert, Sumiko nearly succumbs to what her grandfather termed "ultimate boredom" ("that mean close to lose mind," he explains). But Sumiko finds hope and a form of salvation as a beautiful garden she creates and a friendship with a Native American boy, Frank, both begin to blossom. The contrast between the Native Americans' plight and that of the interned may enlighten many readers ("They take our land and put you on it. They give you electricity," snaps Frank). Kadohata clearly and eloquently conveys her heroine's mixture of shame, anger and courage. Readers will be inspired by Sumiko's determination to survive and flourish in a harsh, unjust environment. Ages 11-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.Children's Literature
Twelve-year-old Sumiko lost her parents early in life but she has made herself useful, and she and her little brother Tak-Tak are happy on her aunt and uncle's flower farm in California. She deals pretty well with being the only Japanese girl in her class, even when a parent kindly uninvites her to a birthday party that included everyone. She has only just weathered that hurt when Pearl Harbor is bombed. Immediately she must burn everything that makes her seem loyal to Japan, even the sole picture of her parents, for there is a Japanese flag in the photo. Before she knows it she is shipped off to an interment camp in the desert of Poston, Arizona, on an Indian reservation where nothing grows. Friendship with a Mojave Indian boy makes her warm to her environs and see life differently as she realizes that the lot of the Native Americans is even worse than the Japanese. This is the book for which the author should have won an award. Much information about this dreadful era is imparted to children through the eyes of this memorable heroine, and the horrors are revealed with a gentle hand. 2006, Atheneum, Ages 9 to 12.—Susie Wilde
VOYA
Twelve-year-old Sumiko lives and works with her aunt and uncle on a flower farm in California. It is early December 1941, and Sumiko, the only Japanese student in her class, is excited to be invited to a birthday party. She is turned away at the door by her classmate's mother and is so embarrassed that she does not know how she will return to school. The issue never comes up because the Japanese army bombs Pearl Harbor the day after the party. The U.S. Government begins rounding up Japanese Americans near the coast and placing them in relocation camps. Her uncle and grandfather are sent to a camp administered by the Department of Justice while the rest of the family goes to the Colorado River Relocation Camp in the Arizona desert administered by the Office of Indian Affairs. Sumiko resists "ultimate boredom" by watching her six-year-old brother, Takao, occasionally running wild with friend Sachi, and surreptitiously meeting Mohave Indian boy Frank in the bean fields that surround the camp. She attempts to keep her dreams of opening a flower shop after the war by gardening with elderly neighbor Mr. Moto. She observes prejudice within the camp between collaborators and Japanese loyalists as well as slight hostilities between the Indians and the camp's denizens. As the war drags on and people begin leaving the camp to work in the Midwest, Sumiko realizes the strength of her family and comes to terms with the constancy of change. In this important book from a noted author, the subject matter is slightly marred by inconsistent and flat characterization and a narrative tendency to tell rather than to show, as well as an overabundance of exclamation points. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P M J (Readablewithout serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2006, Atheneum/S & S, 272p., Ages 11 to 15.—Tim Capehart