A Place to Belong

With trademark faith in her protagonist's resilience, Kadohata (Checked) depicts an ugly chapter of history through the eyes of 12-year-old Hanako, whose parents were coerced into renouncing their American citizenship in a U.S. internment camp during WWII. After their release, they emigrate to her father's family farm outside Hiroshima. Stepping off the train, Hanako immediately encounters bedraggled soldiers and people who barely survived the U.S. bombing, and she is embraced by her warm, good-humored grandparents. The push-pull between humanity's best and worst and between acceptance and resistance are at the heart of this powerful and joyful work. Hanako's philosophical awakening goes much deeper than the caught-between-cultures dilemma that the title implies. The girl forms her moral compass in an environment fraught with desperate decisions (should she give food to the bomb-scarred beggar boy or to her own little brother?), but in Kadohata's confident hands, the drama is threaded with light, like the kintsukuroi--broken pottery mended with gold seams--that Hanako's grandfather shows her. Kadohata's plainspoken storytelling, in which small things, such as mochi cakes, inspire rapture, and moving halfway around the world is taken more or less in stride, will resonate with adults as well as young readers. Final art not seen by PW. Ages 10-14. (May)

Gr 5 Up--World War II has ended and 12-year-old Hanako, her five-year old brother Akira, and their American-born parents have spent the past four years imprisoned in a series of internment camps. Hana's parents accept an offer from the U.S. government to renounce their American citizenship and expatriate to Japan. Their plan is to live with Hanako's father's parents, poor tenant farmers outside the city of Hiroshima. Hanako is hopeful for her family's new chance in Japan and immediately loves her Jiichan and Baachan but is faced with the realities of life in an unfamiliar, war-blighted country. Resources are scarce; as her family toils endlessly to keep food in the house, Hanako is torn between providing for her family and sharing what little she has with the people she encounters around Hiroshima. In her trademark style, Kadohata unfurls the complex web of the girl's inner thoughts in a concise yet cutting third-person narrative. Hanako attempts to discern what it means to be good and how to belong in a place where one is not truly welcome. An afterword gives further details on the history of internment and expatriate Americans in Japan. VERDICT A first purchase for collections needing complex and emotionally impactful historical fiction.--Darla Salva Cruz, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NY