Kira-kira is a Japanese word that describes things that
glitter. It is Katie Takeshima's first word taught to her by her
older sister Lynn as they lie in the empty road outside their house
looking at the stars. Lynn teaches Katie everything worth knowing.
When their family moves from their Japanese community in Iowa to
Georgia, Lynn is the one who must explain why some of the other
children won't talk to them at school.

The setting is 1950s Georgia. Katie's parents are American-born
Japanese, but that doesn't change attitudes toward the family. Her
mom and dad work in a poultry processing plant, in conditions
typical of factories in the mid-1950s. Factory workers wear thick
pads beneath their uniforms because they aren't allowed to take
breaks to use the bathroom. Workers suffer permanent injury from
long hours of performing the same tasks. They aren't given time off
for sickness or family emergencies. Attempts to organize a union
lead to beatings and other repercussions.

When Katie asks her mother about unions, her mother responds, "A
union is when all the workers get together and fight the very
people who have provided them with a job … It's wrong to
fight the people who are trying to help you." Katie's mother is
afraid of losing one of the few jobs available to
Japanese-Americans.

Through the family's struggle to raise money for a home, it is Lynn
who is always providing the link between the old and the new and
helping the family to understand the process of assimilation. But
when she gets sick, the family begins to fall apart. It is up to
Katie to take on the role of big sister and eldest daughter.

Cynthia Kadohata is clearly a gifted writer. Her prose sparkles
with a specificity that makes KIRA-KIRA read more like a memoir
than fiction. There are many things in the book that are true. The
conditions in post-war factories are true; in some places they
still exist. The struggles of an American-born Japanese family are
true, and the limitations placed on the family are still
experienced by many immigrant families in this country. And the
relationships in this book are true, especially the bond between
Katie and her sister Lynn.

Early in the book Lynn tells her sister, "The blue of the sky is
one of the most special colors in the world, because the color is
deep but see-through both at the same time." She adds that water
and people's eyes have the same quality. Good fiction can also have
this quality of depth and transparency; KIRA-KIRA certainly
does.

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