Newbery Medal to "Kira-Kira" by Japanese-American

[Taro Toporific]

Newbery medal puts Long Beach author back on road to success
AP Wire, 03/23/2005 / LONG BEACH, Calif.---
....Cynthia Kadohata used her own background to tell the story of a Japanese family living in the South in the 1950s. "Kira-Kira" - the title refers to the Japanese word for "shining" - is narrated by young Katie Takeshima, who recalls her family's struggle to earn money and relate to the world outside the Japanese community.
Praised by the American Library Association, which awards the Newbery, as a "tenderly nuanced novel (that) glitters with plain and poignant words"...more...

Read chapter one here. or visit the author's website.

[Andocrates]

It's written like a Scholastic Books 4th grade reader. Why would pansies settle in Iowa just 5 years after ww2 ended?

[Taro Toporific]

It's written like a Scholastic Books 4th grade reader...

It's the Newbery Medal "to encourage original creative work in the field of books for children." Its target is students in the middle-grades ages 12 and up. Winning the Newbery Medal means automatic sales to 100,000+ schools and libraries across the US so Ms Kadohata has hit the jackpot after more than a decade of writing in obscurity.

[Andocrates]

I did not write pansies I never use japs or anything so not sure why it got changed.

Why would a Japanese family settle in Iowa just 5 years after WW2?

And OK, I get it, it WAS written for children. It all makes sense now.