From: Steven Engelfried <sengelfried>
Date: Tue, 18 Jan 2005 07:53:10 -0800 (PST)

For my personal reading choices, I usually pass on the teenage-girl-dying genre. I figure, I read "A Summer to Die" and that will about do it for me. But "Kira Kira" had much more going on that drew me in. The historical fiction setting, the voice and consistently maintained perspective of the girl, the supporting characters (loved that Uncle). The sister's illness was looming through all of it, but because the author stuck so well to the perspective of the younger sister, who wasn't as aware of what was going on, that illness didn't dominate the reading experience too much. In fact I'm not even sure that the death was the climax of the book. I thought the most powerful and important scene was when the father apologized for wrecking the rich guy's car...and then got fired. Heart wrenching, but perfectly done. It sort of summed up the kind of courage and dignity that the parents lived by, that the older sister was growing into, and that the younger sister was going to need to develop. I think it's great when a book like this, which is more complex than it might seem from a plot summary, will now get much wider exposure and closer readings, sort of like when "A Single Shard" won a few years ago.
 
- Steven Engelfried, Beaverton City Library
  12375 SW 5th Street
  Beaverton, OR 97005
  503R6%99
  sengelfried at yahoo.com

                
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Received on Tue 18 Jan 2005 09:53:10 AM CST