This is authentic - "

The Thing About Luck

The Thing About Luck, by Cynthia Kadohata.

The Thing About Luck, by Cynthia Kadohata.

In my role as mother and final-sayer-in-what-media-we-consume-as-a-family, I have tried as hard as I can to ensure that the stories we read or watch are as enjoyable for the parents as they are for the kids. Sometimes I am triumphant (Hello Dolly, The Fantastic Mr Fox, A Wrinkle in Time) and sometimes less so (Ice Age 2, Fancy Nancy) but as my daughter has gotten older, I have been very happy to discover lots of books for “older kids” that I would be happy to read on my own (and sometimes I do read ahead a little, but don’t tell anybody…)

The Thing About Luck by Cynthia Kadohata is one of those books. I discovered it while browsing in Books of Wonder, which might be my all time favorite bookstore, despite (or perhaps because of) the fact that it only sells books for children. I made the purchase knowing nothing about it save the rave reviews of the store’s staff, the fact that it won a National Book Award, it’s main character is a twelve year old Japanese-American girl who’s family works in Kansas (may as well be Mars) as wheat harvesters, and, well, that this particular volume was signed by the author.

I won’t go into the story in detail, but it’s moving and instructive and funny (there were times when I laughed so hard I had to stop reading and collect myself) and complex and nervewracking and beautiful all rolled into one. And we came out the other end thinking about how a family tries to assimilate it’s original culture into our American style (or not), about first crushes, about struggling with being different, about the many and various ways people find to express their love for each other, and so much more.

In other words, it got us talking about life. Which is the best kind of conversation you can have as a family, if you ask me.

Comments (0)

Leave a Reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

*