Winner of the APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature An ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults Book
After a classmate commits suicide, Kana Goldberg—a half-Japanese, half-Jewish American—wonders who is responsible. She and her cliquey friends said some thoughtless things to the girl. Hoping that Kana will reflect on her behavior, her parents pack her off to her mother's ancestral home in Japan for the summer. There Kana spends hours under the hot sun tending to her family's mikan orange groves. Kana's mixed heritage makes it hard to fit in at first, especially under the critical eye of her traditional grandmother, who has never accepted Kana's father. But as the summer unfolds, Kana gets to know her relatives, Japan, and village culture, and she begins to process the pain and guilt she feels about the tragedy back home. Then news about a friend sends her world spinning out of orbit all over again.
Release date:
February 22, 2011
Publisher:
Delacorte Press
Print pages:
336
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One week after you stuffed a coil of rope into your backpack and walked uphill into Osgoods' orchard where blooms were still closed fists
my father looked up summer airfares to Tokyo
why? I protested it wasn't my fault I didn't do anything!
exactly! my mother hissed and made the call to her older sister my aunt in Shizuoka
nothing would change their minds
all my mother would say as I followed her through garden beds transplanting cubes of seedlings she'd grown under lights in hothouses
all she'd say row after row in tight-lipped talk-down do-as-I-say Japanese was you can reflect in the presence of your ancestors
not that I'm alone in being sent away-- Lisa's off to summer school Becca to Bible camp Mona to cousins in Quebec Emily to help in her uncle's store Erin to math camp Abby to some adventure program Noelle to her father's Gina to her mother's Namita to New Jersey . . . all twenty-nine eighth-grade girls scattered, as Gina said, like beads from a necklace snapped
but we weren't a necklace strung in a circle we were more an atom: electrons arranged in shells around Lisa, Becca and Mona first shell solid, the rest of us in orbitals farther out less bound less stable and you-- in the least stable most vulnerable outermost shell
you sometimes hovered near sometimes drifted off some days were hurled far from Lisa our nucleus whose biting wit made us laugh spin revolve around her always close to her indifferent to orbits like yours farther out than ours
after you were found in the grove of Macs and Cortlands that were still tight fists of not-yet-bloom and the note was found on your dresser by your mother who brought it to the principal who shared it with police who called for an investigation and pulled in counselors from all over the district
word got around
and people in town began to stare and talk and text about our uncaring generation
still I don't think I personally did anything to drive you to perfect slipknots or learn to tie a noose . . . with what? I wonder shoelaces? backpack cords? drawstrings in your gym shorts as you waited for your turn at the softball bat?
because of you, Ruth, I'm exiled to my maternal grandmother, Baachan, to the ancestors at the altar and to Uncle, Aunt and cousins I haven't seen in three years-- not since our last trip back for Jiichan's funeral when Baachan told my sister Emi she was just right but told me I was fat should eat less fill myself eighty percent no more each meal
but then I was small then I didn't have hips then was before this bottom inherited from my father's Russian Jewish mother
my mother was youngest of four children born to my grandparents mikan orange farmers in a Shizuoka village of sixty households where eldest son inherits all
but there were no sons in her generation so my aunt eldest daughter took in a husband who took on the Mano name took over the Mano holdings became sole heir head of household my uncle
into my suitcase my mother has stuffed gifts-- socks dish towels framed photos of Emi and me last year's raspberry jam pancake mix maple syrup-- and ten books for me to finish by September
books she didn't pick I know because she only reads novels in Japanese and these ten are in English-- books chosen by a librarian or teacher or other mother with themes of responsibility self-discovery coming-of-age reaching out I GET IT I want to shout
she also changed dollars into yen and divided bills into three envelopes labeled in Japanese-- one for spending one for transportation and school fees one with gift money for Buddhist ceremonies to honor her father--my Jiichan, this third summer since the year of his passing
the nonstop flight to Narita is thirteen hours but door to door my home in New York to theirs in Shizuoka is a full twenty-four
on the plane there is time . . . for movies books journal entries meals magazines movies sleep meals magazines sleep boredom apprehension
I have never been to Japan alone never traveled anywhere alone except sleepovers and overnight camp for a week in Vermont
on the plane flight attendants chat with me unaccompanied minor praise my language abilities assume it's a happy occasion my returning to the village of my mother's childhood for the summer
but they don't know what I know, Ruth-- that it's all because of you
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