Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata

Title: Weedflower

Author: Cynthia Kadohata

Stars: 4

Description: Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her flowers and family to go home to. That all changes after the horrific events of Pearl Harbor. Other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor, even if, like Sumiko, they were born in the United Staes, As suspicions grow, Sumiko and her family find themselves being shipped to an internment camp in one of the hottest deserts in the United States. The vivid color of her previous life is gone forever, and now dust storms regularly choke the sky and seep into every crack of the military barrack that is her new "home." Sumiko soon discovers that the camp is on an Indian reservation and that the Japanese are as unwanted there as they'd been at home. But then she meets a young Mohave boy who might just become her first real friend...if he can ever stop being angry about the fact that the internment camp is on his tribe's land.


Sumiko has a very good life. She lives on a flower farm, and her dream is to to own that flower farm one day. But everything changes when she is shipped of to a internment camp. Her mother and father died a long time ago so it is just her, her brother Tak-Tak, Bull, Ichiro, Auntie, Uncle, and Jiichan.

The more she is in the camp, she feels like this place his more of her home then the flower farm. And now she has some friends, well, one lies a lot, Sachi, but then she has Frank. A Indian boy who is not happy that the internment camp is on his land.



Who Is Your Favorite Character and Why? I would have to say Jiichan. He is Sumiko's grandfather. Why? Because he has a good sense of humor probably.

What Is Your Favorite Part and Why? I think it would have to be when Sumiko is leaving and she is saying goodbye to Mr. Motto and Mr. Motto says,"I always wanted a daughter." Why? Because it shows how much Mr. Motto loves Sumiko.

Are You Like the Main Character Why Or Why Aren't You? Um..... I don't know. We are very I think. Why? First of all, I am not Japanese. And Sumiko loves flowers, and I don't really care about them. So I would say no I am not.


Natalie