Kira-Kira

Kira-Kira by Cynthia Kadohata

Katie is Japanese-American and she adores her older sister, Lynn. Their parents close their Oriental food market in Iowa and must move to Georgia to find work in the chicken-processing plants there. It is a hard life. The family is poor, but “…in the way Japanese people are poor, meaning (they) never borrowed money from anyone, period.” Lynn is Katie’s idol and the two girls are wonderful friends. Lynn teaches Katie all she has learned in life. Then Lynn becomes weak and ill and the family is shaken to the core.