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    A Place to Belong
    A Place to Belong
    A Place to Belong
    Audiobook8 hours

    A Place to Belong

    Written by Cynthia Kadohata

    Narrated by Jennifer Ikeda

    4/5

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    About this audiobook

    Five starred reviews!

    “Another gift from Kadohata to her readers.” —Booklist (starred review)

    A Japanese American family, reeling from their ill treatment in the Japanese imprisonment camps, gives up their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation wreaked by the atomic bomb in this piercing and all too relevant look at the aftermath of World War II by Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata.

    World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken.

    America, the only home she’s ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family—and thousands of other innocent Americans—because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii.

    Japan, the country they’ve been forced to move to, the country they hope will be the family’s saving grace, where they were supposed to start new and better lives, is in shambles because America dropped bombs of their own—one on Hiroshima unlike any other in history. And Hanako’s grandparents live in a small village just outside the ravaged city.

    The country is starving, the black markets run rampant, and countless orphans beg for food on the streets, but how can Hanako help them when there is not even enough food for her own brother?

    Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn’t mean it can’t be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi—fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateMay 14, 2019
    ISBN9781508295402
    Author

    Cynthia Kadohata

    Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Medal–winning book Kira-Kira, the National Book Award winner The Thing About Luck, the Jane Addams Peace Award and PEN America Award winner Weedflower, Cracker!, Outside Beauty, A Million Shades of Gray, Half a World Away, Checked, A Place to Belong, Saucy, and several critically acclaimed adult novels, including The Floating World. She lives with her dogs and hockey-playing son in California. Visit her online at CynthiaKadohata.com.

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    Reviews for A Place to Belong

    4/5

    33 ratings4 reviews

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    • 4/5
      This is a tough story, sensitively told. Set in the aftermath of the American Internment of Japanese Americans, Hanako and her family are repatriated to Japan, after being forced to renounce their citizenship under duress. They are "returned" to Hiroshima and Hanako is suddenly adjusting to a country and a life that is nothing like where she grew up. It's a quiet moving book -- a lot happens, but much of the emotion lurks beneath the surface. There is the awful fear of starvation, the knowledge of hunger balanced against the freedom of a new life with her grandparents. It brings home a lot of the beauty of traditional Japanese culture and values, while embracing the West and the opportunity America represented. It holds America accountable, but in a compassionate manner. It illustrates the heartbreaking decisions that war forces families to make.

      Advanced Readers Copy provided by Edelweiss.
    • 2/5
      Interesting look at the life of a Japanese American family, but as far as the book itself goes I'm kinda meh on it. The story lacked structure and the pacing felt weird to me. Important topic but
    • 4/5
      After spending years in an internment camp, Hanako and her family are moving to Japan at the end of World War II. But Hanako has never lived in Japan, never even met her grandparents, and she wonders if she will fit in here in her new home country.There are not enough books about the post-World War II period in general, and I like that this one doesn’t shy away from noting the terrible effects of war, including the massive fallout from the atomic bomb, which includes devastation both physical and emotional. Kadohata also doesn’t shy away from calling the internment camps “prisons,” which is far more accurate than the innocuous-sounding “camp.” She also notes how murky life can be though, with far too few things being simply black-or-white; Hanako often questions her own decisions and wonders if it makes her bad or good to help out her starving neighbors while her own family is also struggling to eat enough. Speaking of Hanako, I didn't super love her as a character. She has a tendency to over-exaggerate everything as 'the best ever,' particularly when trying to placate her younger brother. This isn't enthusiasm though; she herself calls it "lying" and sometimes debates whether or not to tell such a lie. Meanwhile, her younger brother Akira is considered endearing by all his family but he seems to throw epic tantrums that are more fitting of a younger child. Their parents are pretty generic and without personality. On the flip side, I absolutely loved Baachan and Jiichan, the children's grandparents. When the book was over, I was sad to be parting with them. The relationship between the grandparents and grandchildren was super sweet, with the grandparents eternally self-sacrificing and the children actually realizing this and wanting to be as loving as possible back.While the story itself is pretty good, I am simply not a fan of Kadohata’s style. She seems to write ‘down’ to children; the subject matter can be difficult but the writing is very simplistic (little metaphor, simile, lyrical prose, etc.). Perhaps this *could* be good for reluctant readers but then the length of this book (400 pages) would turn them off. Also she excessively uses exclamation marks! Even when they are completely unnecessary! Because apparently this is the only way she knows how to create tension! Even in moments that aren’t actually tense!The cover illustration is perfect; the inner illustrations (black-and-white pen drawings) mostly don’t add a lot, although I do really like the one of the family working in the rice paddy and the one of the family having their portrait taken.
    • 4/5
      After Hanako’s family’s internment during WWII, they take a ship to Japan to live with Papa’s parents, having chosen repatriation. There Hanako sees the impact of the war and her Baachan and Jiichan’s struggle to grow and maintain their crops. Hanako feels apart from her American life but also from life and culture in Japan. As she thoughtfully takes in all that she experiences, good and bad, she always has the love of her family to keep her grounded. A deliberate pacing of prose that matches Hanako’s thoughtful observations, with moments of joy, humor and sadness that pop up unexpectedly. Surely the first title in children's literature that explores what happened after the internment.