Weedflower

Title: Weedflower
Author: Cynthia Kadohata
Required Multicultural Text

     I thought this book was very good and brought out a lot of emotions from me as a reader.  Sumiko, a twelve-year-old Japanese-American girl living in California on a flower farm, experiences a dramatic change in her life after the attack on Pearl Harbor.  Before the attack, she lived with her family and enjoyed working on the farm all day, though she did not have any friends at school.  She seemed happy enough with her life and the responsibilities she had in the house, but an emptiness of acceptance at school.  After the attack, her life is turned upside down as some family members are taken away, and they are all stripped of their Japanese heritage.  Even though she thought of herself as the most American in the family and she hated working on her Japanese writing, it was not easy to give it up.  This little girl went through a lot of hardships just to get to this place, and then she and her family were shipped into internment camps.  In the camps, life was unthinkably worse than she had ever thought possible.  However, Sumiko continued to look after her brother and help her family, and she also made a real friend for the first time.  I loved this little friendship in the story and how the little Mohave boy on the Native American reservation liked the Japanese girl who brought him ice.  I do wish there was more to this story and more explanation about what happens with their friendship even after Sumiko is able to leave the camp.  Overall, I really enjoyed this book, even the sad parts which were frequent.  To me it is a wealth of new information about this time in our country and what terrible conditions we put all these innocent people in to live.  It is terrible, but that is just from looking back now, at the time I'm sure a lot of people thought these were necessary precautions that might save the country, and though it sounds harsh now, who can say I wouldn't have thought the same in those circumstances.  I think this book can be used in higher level classes to help students understand this part of history that is barely taught.