CI 5442: Historical Fiction Reponse

The novel Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata turned out to be exactly as the segments of reviews printed on the back cover stated it to be; it shines and speaks to readers as Kadohata tells Katie Takeshima’s bittersweet story of family, love, and loss. Kadohata is able to see the world through the eyes of a young child in the 1950’s who is forced to make many difficult adjustments in the young life. The deep family relationships bring the characters into perspective; Kadohata details the account of a dynamic family struggling to make a brighter future.

I absolutely love the title of the book, Kira-Kira; before I even knew what it meant, the lyrical quality drew me in. Within the first few pages readers are told that kira-kira is Japanese for “glittering,” such a simple yet prolific word. Lynn tells Katie that the sky is kira-kira because “‘the color is deep but see-through both at the same time’” just like the ocean and people’s eyes (3). As a curious reader, I wanted to know why this word was so important—why was it chosen as the title for this book? It wasn’t until much later in the text that I determined why I thought Kadohata chose this word for the title; to me it represented to relationship between Katie and Lynn as well as Lynn’s “theme.”

The relationship between Katie and Lynn is fascinating. The two are inseparable and Lynn always ensures that her sister is cared for, a duty that Lynn takes very seriously. Lynn is the one that looks out for Katie and has “serious talks” with her; Lynn tells Katie that they are moving to Georgia, that Katie might not make friends at school because of prejudices against them, and she tells Katie when their mother is pregnant. While Lynn takes care of Katie, Katie idolizes Lynn. She looks up to her as a genius and friend. They spend a lot of time looking at the sky, making wishes and promises about their future lives, and worrying about their parents. Katie agrees with everything that Lynn tells her and finally Lynn asks, “‘Do you agree with me all the time just because I say so or because you really, truly agree with me?’ I didn’t see the difference between the two things, so I just said I didn’t know” (60). Katie’s reply illustrates her undeniable love and admiration for her big sister.

Things changes when Lynn becomes friends with a girl from school and her behavior changes from being that of a friend to being that of an older sister, alone. The realistic shift from childish antics to boy-crazy attitudes that adolescents experience is chronicled through Katie’s eyes and is, thus, illustrated as a waste of time. Kadohata brilliantly explores this shift through Katie’s young eyes, expressing her confusion with Lynn’s behavior. She stops agreeing with Lynn and begins to feel like a child in her presence. Katie notices one day, “Whenever I try to talk to her, she made me feel immature, even if she didn’t mean to” (120).

While the relationship between Katie and Lynn changes, so does the relationship of the entire family. A major theme of the book—and the Takeshima family—is duty. Katie’s parents know it is their duty to do what is best for their family and provide them with the things they need; this duty drives the family from Iowa to Georgia, it pushes Katie’s parents to work hours and hours each week I order to save enough money to buy a house, it causes them to take out a loan from the bank in order to get that house—something they would never have done if not for Lynn’s condition. Lynn feels it is her duty to take care of Katie, and Katie feels it is her duty to take care of Sammy. When Lynn becomes sick, Katie believes it is her duty to take care of her. Even after Lynn’s death, both Katie and her parents try to protect and take care of each other the best they can. The relationship of the entire family is strained by Lynn’s sickness and threatens to disintegrate, but after Lynn’s death they go on. Katie remarks on how her father only took two days to grieve for Lynn before getting back into his normal routine, “He needed to think about his children who were still alive, because he was honor-bound to think of the living before the dead” (240). Through Lynn’s death the family is brought back together and each of them take something away from the experience.

I thought the setting of the story affected the characters as they struggle to overcome adversity. What is interesting about the book is that the characters are so realistic, that I would often forget the story was set in the 1950s until the girls would mention something relating to the prejudice they faced or specific time-telling things like how much money a dollar seemed to be. I would become so absorbed in the lives of the characters as simply people, that the time period would float in and out of my consciousness. I am not trying to diminish the significance of the historical setting, but there are so many other aspects of the novel that intrigued me as well. Kadohata does create a setting that is realistic and imaginable—you can live it with Katie.

Kadohata’s book is about hope and the ability to achieve a brighter future. Lynn lived for the future and forced those around her to do the same; she loved to look at the sky, the infinite beyond that was full of the same possibilities as their futures. She was always talking about the great things she would accomplish in her life, the great things that Katie would accomplish in hers. It is by preserving this hope and remembering the infinite possibilities of the future that she was able to look at the world in a different way from those around her. Katie writes in her essay for school, “Lynn could take a simple everyday object, like a box of Kleenex and use it to prove how amazing the world is….This is the main theme of my sister’s life” (224). Lynn believed that everything in life could be described as kira-kira if you look at it the right way. Lynn’s death was a heart-wrenching event for her entire family, and yet they each grew from it in a positive way; they took something and made it beautiful, made it kira-kira.