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Cynthia Kadohata

A Place to Belong Hardcover – May 14, 2019

by Cynthia Kadohata (Author), Julia Kuo (Illustrator)

108 ratings

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A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the YearA Booklist Editors' ChoiceA Horn Book Fanfare Best of 2019A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019A Parents' Choice Gold Award WinnerSo California Independent Booksellers Middle Grade Book of the YearALA Notable BookNational Book Award LonglistFive Starred Reviews
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.

Reading age

10 - 14 years
Print length

416 pages
Language

English
Grade level

5 - 9
Lexile measure

690L
Dimensions

5.13 x 1.2 x 7.75 inches
Publisher

Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books
Publication date

May 14, 2019
ISBN-10

1481446649
ISBN-13

978-1481446648
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Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

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, NYα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

Review

"This is a book to sink deep into." Author: Horn Book Magazine, starred review

he New York Times Book Review: "...it's Hanako herself -- warm, thoughtful and deeply affectionate -- who sets the tone for this transcendent story of love and family. [Hanako and her family] pass through the bombed city to live in a village of tenant farmers, so poor that a single potato is precious and Hanako cannot afford to help the scarred boy she tries to befriend. These are devastating circumstances, but Kadohata explains the history behind them in simple, direct prose, perfectly calibrated for younger readers. Still, her greatest achievement is in never losing sight of the child at the center of her story...The book is filled with unexpected joys, and the most sustaining are the connections Hanako feels with her family."

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Atheneum/Caitlyn Dlouhy Books; Illustrated edition (May 14, 2019)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 416 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1481446649
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1481446648
Reading age ‏ : ‎ 10 - 14 years
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 690L
Grade level ‏ : ‎ 5 - 9
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.1 pounds
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.13 x 1.2 x 7.75 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #121,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #240 in Children's Fiction on Social Situations
- #398 in Children's Multigenerational Family Life
- #1,597 in Children's Books on Emotions & Feelings (Books)

Customer Reviews:
108 ratings

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Cynthia Kadohata

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As a child, Cynthia Kadohata’s biggest life goal was not to be a writer. It was to own a dog. Since then, she has had six rescue dogs as her best friends. And, she has been extremely fortunate to have mostly worked as a writer during her adult life. She is the author of ten children’s books, including Kira-Kira, winner of the Newbery Medal; The Thing About Luck, winner of the National Book Award; Weedflower, winner of the Jane Addams Peace Award; Cracker, winner of six state awards as voted on by kids; A Place to Belong, longlisted for the National Book Award; and the upcoming Saucy, about a piglet like millions of others, yet also TOTALLY herself.

Customer reviews

4.7 out of 5

108 global ratings

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Top reviews from the United States

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H. Johnson

Needs to be Read!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on July 11, 2020

Verified Purchase

This is such an important book for filling out young people’s understanding of WW II and the treatment of Americans sent to internment camps which resulted in repatriation of many back to Japan with their family members of which many had never been anything other than citizens of the USA. Shocking, educational, and so well written. This is American history left out of the history books but needs to be known.

Helpful

Ernie Walker

Such an important book to read

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 24, 2021

Verified Purchase

My son loved this book. I read it after him and loved it too. I learned a lot about the internment camps in the United States in the 1950s and how American citizens were coerced into giving up their American citizenship.

Helpful

ShockYourMind99

One of my favorite reads ever on Japanese internment/the post-war Japanese experience

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 8, 2020

Verified Purchase

This historical-fiction title has SUCH HEART. I was saddened to leave the characters when the narrative closed, but given that it did so on such a heartfelt, affirming note, I left the title with gratitude for the reading experience. This is a fine book to instruct (or gift!) to readers in the middle grades. Nuanced, layered, and surprisingly complex, it stays with you when it is done.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Amazon Customer

Couldn’t put it down!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on January 30, 2020

Verified Purchase

I couldn’t put this book down! I highly recommend this book for middle school students.

2 people found this helpful

Helpful

A tale with hope and heart

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 20, 2019

Hope and love shine as a constant beacon in a tale which leaves the reader sighing and praying that a a girl and her homeland find a way to survive.

Although Hanako and her brother were born in America and are Americans, her parents immigrated from Japan. After the bombing of Pearl Harbor and spending four years in a camp, they're shipping 'back' to Japan. Hanako's life is already a sea without roots as four years before, everything was taken from them—her father's restaurant, their home, their lives. Living in Japan is something she's not sure whether to fear or be hopeful about. While the grandparents she never knew before are as amazing as can be, they reside not too far from Hiroshima. The pain and destruction from the bomb hits in a way Hanako never could have dreamed. Somehow, she hopes to find a new beauty, one described by her grandfather, in the chaos and pain.

The author has taken a very complex and troubled moment in history and presented it in a bitter-sweet and beautiful light with just the right amount of hope for the intended age group. Hanako is a lovely girl. Despite the unfair and terrible treatment her family faces, there isn't a sign of hatred or contempt in her heart. Her entire family maintains a peaceful and hopeful attitude, which outshines the darkness around them. Her reactions and thoughts are understandable and her desire to help is an inspiration. The grandparents add to this with their humor and extremely positive attitude. And it's this brightness which allows the horrible world around them to be presented in just the right way.

This isn't a fast paced read, but rather allows the needed time for everything to sink in. And there is quite a bit for the author to bring across. The four years in the camp are only dabbled in as memories and mentions, while the first chapters allow the reader to settle into the entire situation as well as the characters. This isn't an action book, but glides on emotions and experiences. It digs into the heart and brings the problems to life. Not only young teens will enjoy this one, but older readers are sure to get lost in the pages as well.

I received a complimentary copy and enjoyed the author's beautiful weave very much. So, I'm leaving my honest thoughts.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Xiaopeng

A place to belong

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 15, 2021

I LOVE this book!! It took me a long time to finished it, and thinking the story was having 41 chapters!!!! Girl's name is Hanako. Please!! Date: March 14, 2021. If you want to know when. Covid 19. Have a good day!!!!!!!! BYE.

Helpful

Deb Nance at Readerbuzz

Will be one of my favorite reads of the year

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 12, 2019

Hanako and her family---her father, mother, and little brother---are moving to Japan. The war is over, a war which the family spent interred in a detention camp for Japanese Americans. Roosevelt offered the adults an opportunity to revoke their citizenship and to be returned to Japan and Hanako's parents have decided to do this. They are going to stay with Hanako's grandparents on a country farm outside a large city, Hiroshima, a city that was rumored in the camps to have been bombed.

I loved this story of a girl and her family who are trying to find their place in the world, a world that is shifting, changing, where no one feels certain of what home is. It's a story I haven't heard before now, and it's delicately told in that beautiful Japanese way of honing in on a single flower petal and then zooming out suddenly to the big truths of the world.

I'm pretty sure this will be one of my favorite reads of the year.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

A Very Moving Novel

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 2, 2020

This is a better novel than many adult novels I read. It tells poignant story and suffers no fools. It is a YA novel but tells an explicit straight story and tells it well. A Japanese family who lost their restaurant, home and pet when they were rounded up by the American military because they were ethnic Japanese. The family spent years in internment camps then at the end of the war, the parents were pressured to renounce their American citizenship and emigrate to Japan. Their relatives lived near Hiroshima so they experienced the bomb. The land they live on is desolate and many people are starving. One thing that bothered me was that the radioactive effects aren't addressed except for the bomb and immediate aftereffects. No one does of cancer or chronic illness. That bothered me. Other than that, I lived the book.

Helpful

Top reviews from other countries

carol mensah

Amazing!

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on May 20, 2020

Verified Purchase

To be honest,this is the best book I have ever read! And I'm not gonna lie,it made me cry a little.I totally recommend book! One of my favourite books ever!

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