Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata

From Barnes & Noble

Sumiko is only 12 years old, but she can already divide her life into two distinct periods: the good times before Pearl Harbor and the bad times after. At the internment camp, which is located on a desert Indian reservation, she and her family cope with their new situation and the uncertainty of their future. Only her abundant imagination and the friendship of a young Mohave carry her through these hard times. A stirring novel about a "weedflower" caught in the hurricanes of war.

From the Publisher

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.
Now, other Americans start to suspect that all Japanese people are spies for the emperor and 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….
With searing insight and clarity, Newbery Medal—winning author Cynthia Kadohata explores an important and painful topic through the eyes of a young girl who yearns to belong. Weedflower is the story of the rewards and challenges of a friendship across the racial divide, as well as the based-on-real-life story of how the meeting of Japanese Americans and Native Americans changed the future of both.

Publishers Weekly

Set in America immediately before the attack on Pearl Harbor, this insightful novel by the Newbery-winning author of Kira-Kira traces the experiences of a Japanese-American girl and her family. Sixth-grader Sumiko, the only Asian student in her class, has always felt like an outcast. Early on, a heartbreaking scene foreshadows events to come, when Sumiko arrives at a classmate's birthday party and is told by the hostess to wait outside on the porch, and is then sent away. The girl's feelings of isolation turn to fear after the United States declares war on Japan. First, government officials take away Sumiko's uncle and grandfather. Then her aunt must sell their California flower farm; they are transported to a makeshift camp and later to a Native-American reservation in Poston, Ariz. Living like a prisoner in the desert, Sumiko nearly succumbs to what her grandfather termed "ultimate boredom" ("that mean close to lose mind," he explains). But Sumiko finds hope and a form of salvation as a beautiful garden she creates and a friendship with a Native American boy, Frank, both begin to blossom. The contrast between the Native Americans' plight and that of the interned may enlighten many readers ("They take our land and put you on it. They give you electricity," snaps Frank). Kadohata clearly and eloquently conveys her heroine's mixture of shame, anger and courage. Readers will be inspired by Sumiko's determination to survive and flourish in a harsh, unjust environment. Ages 11-up. (Apr.) Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Susie Wilde - Children's Literature

Twelve-year-old Sumiko lost her parents early in life but she has made herself useful, and she and her little brother Tak-Tak are happy on her aunt and uncle's flower farm in California. She deals pretty well with being the only Japanese girl in her class, even when a parent kindly uninvites her to a birthday party that included everyone. She has only just weathered that hurt when Pearl Harbor is bombed. Immediately she must burn everything that makes her seem loyal to Japan, even the sole picture of her parents, for there is a Japanese flag in the photo. Before she knows it she is shipped off to an interment camp in the desert of Poston, Arizona, on an Indian reservation where nothing grows. Friendship with a Mojave Indian boy makes her warm to her environs and see life differently as she realizes that the lot of the Native Americans is even worse than the Japanese. This is the book for which the author should have won an award. Much information about this dreadful era is imparted to children through the eyes of this memorable heroine, and the horrors are revealed with a gentle hand. 2006, Atheneum, Ages 9 to 12.

Tim Capehart - VOYA

Twelve-year-old Sumiko lives and works with her aunt and uncle on a flower farm in California. It is early December 1941, and Sumiko, the only Japanese student in her class, is excited to be invited to a birthday party. She is turned away at the door by her classmate's mother and is so embarrassed that she does not know how she will return to school. The issue never comes up because the Japanese army bombs Pearl Harbor the day after the party. The U.S. Government begins rounding up Japanese Americans near the coast and placing them in relocation camps. Her uncle and grandfather are sent to a camp administered by the Department of Justice while the rest of the family goes to the Colorado River Relocation Camp in the Arizona desert administered by the Office of Indian Affairs. Sumiko resists "ultimate boredom" by watching her six-year-old brother, Takao, occasionally running wild with friend Sachi, and surreptitiously meeting Mohave Indian boy Frank in the bean fields that surround the camp. She attempts to keep her dreams of opening a flower shop after the war by gardening with elderly neighbor Mr. Moto. She observes prejudice within the camp between collaborators and Japanese loyalists as well as slight hostilities between the Indians and the camp's denizens. As the war drags on and people begin leaving the camp to work in the Midwest, Sumiko realizes the strength of her family and comes to terms with the constancy of change. In this important book from a noted author, the subject matter is slightly marred by inconsistent and flat characterization and a narrative tendency to tell rather than to show, as well as an overabundance of exclamation points. VOYA CODES: 3Q 3P M J (Readablewithout serious defects; Will appeal with pushing; Middle School, defined as grades 6 to 8; Junior High, defined as grades 7 to 9). 2006, Atheneum/S & S, 272p., Ages 11 to 15.

School Library Journal

Gr 5-8-When Pearl Harbor is attacked, the lives of a Japanese-American girl and her family are thrown into chaos. Sumiko, 12, and her younger brother, Tak-Tak, live with their aunt and uncle, grandfather Jiichan, and adult cousins on a flower farm in Southern California. Though often busy with chores, Sumiko enjoys working with the blossoms, particularly stock, or weedflowers (fragrant plants grown in a field). In the difficult days that follow the bombing, the family members fear for their safety and destroy many of their belongings. Then Uncle and Jiichan are taken to a prison camp, and the others are eventually sent to an assembly center at a racetrack, where they live in a horse stable. When they're moved to the Arizona desert, Sumiko misses the routine of her old life and struggles with despair. New friends help; she grows a garden with her neighbor and develops a tender relationship with a Mohave boy. She learns from him that the camp is on land taken from the Mohave reservation and finds that the tribe's plight parallels that of the incarcerated Japanese Americans. Kadohata brings into play some complex issues, but they realistically dovetail with Sumiko's growth from child to young woman. She is a sympathetic heroine, surrounded by well-crafted, fascinating people. The concise yet lyrical prose conveys her story in a compelling narrative that will resonate with a wide audience.-Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA Copyright 2006 Reed Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Post-Pearl Harbor Japanese-American internment is seen from the eyes of a young girl who eventually manages to bloom after she is uprooted and planted in the Arizona desert. Twelve-year-old Sumiko and her little brother Tak-Tak live with their aunt and uncle on a flower farm in California. The only Japanese student in her class, Sumiko longs for friends and acceptance. She loves the fields of "weedflowers" and dreams of owning her own flower shop. After Pearl Harbor, Sumiko and her family are removed from their land and transported to an internment camp on an Indian reservation in Poston, Ariz. Surrounded by fields of dust, Sumiko's "dream was gone and she didn't know what would take its place," until she teams up with her neighbor Mr. Moto to make the desert bloom and escape the "ultimate boredom" of the camp. And when Sumiko meets Frank, a Mohave boy who resents the Japanese on his land, she finds an unlikely, but true friend. Like weedflowers, hope survives in this quietly powerful story. (author's note) (Fiction. 11+)

Product Details

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Reading Group Guide

ABOUT THE BOOK

Twelve-year-old Sumiko lives on a flower farm in California, and dreams of owning a flower shop someday. She is the only Japanese-American girl in her class, and is often the victim of bigotry, but she feels tranquil when she is among the flowers. Then the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor and the United States government send all Japanese people to internment camps. Sumiko and her family are sent to an Indian reservation in the Arizona desert where she discovers that the Indians resent them for taking over their land. Living conditions are poor and Sumiko no longer has the flowers to comfort her, but helping Mr. Moto, a lonely old man, plant a garden, and developing a friendship with Frank, a young Mohave boy, leads her on a journey of self-discovery and helps her realize the real reason that her grandfather left Japan for America long before she was born.

PRE-READING ACTIVITY

Ask students to write a paragraph about what they think racial and ethnic profiling means. Invite them to share their paragraphs in class. Engage them in a discussion about how Americans continue to practice ethnic profiling today.

DISCUSSION TOPICS

Explain the title of the novel.

Sumiko describes loneliness: (1) like everyone was looking at you (2) like nobody was looking at you (3) like you didn't care about anything at all (4) like you were just about to cry over every little thing. Trace Sumiko's feelings of loneliness throughout the novel. How does shelearn to live with loneliness? Compare her feelings of loneliness at the beginning of the novel to her feelings about leaving camp at the end of the story. What other characters in the novel experience loneliness?

Sumiko is very excited when she is invited to Marsha's birthday party. Describe her entire family's reaction when she receives the invitation. Contrast the way Sumiko envisions the party and the way it really is. Discuss the definition of humiliation. How is the scene at Marsha's party the ultimate humiliation for Sumiko? Why doesn't she tell Uncle and Jiichan that she was uninvited to the party? Why does she feel that she can tell Bull? What do you think Marsha feels when her mother sends Sumiko away?

Describe Sumiko's relationship with Tak-Tak. How does she protect him throughout the novel?

Ichiro tells his family that the United States government may execute all the Nikkei if the war breaks out in Japan. Why does Auntie insist that he not discuss this at the dinner table? At what point in the novel does Sumiko begin to believe Ichiro's statement? Ichiro heard that the FBI has been keeping records on Nikkei for a number of years. Why are Jiichan and Uncle of special interest to the United States government?

Jiichan described his trip from Japan to Sumiko: "The thing that kept everybody going was a single word: America." (p. 92) Why did Jiichan feel that the word America was the most important thing his family owned? How did America betray him?

Why does Sumiko feel more American than her cousins? How does she deal with living in two very different cultures? What part of her Japanese heritage does she reject the most? What rituals do her family practice that makes her connect to her Japanese heritage? Explain how she takes this part of her life to the camp at Poston.

Explain what Jiichan meant when he told Sumiko: "The haji she felt was from her Japanese side and the anger was from her American side." (p. 99) Cite passages or scenes in the novel when Sumiko feels haji. Why should the United States government feel haji?

Bull makes a speech on New Year's Day. "You suffer so you can learn." (p. 64) Discuss how Sumiko and her family suffers. What does Sumiko learn from her suffering?

Describe Sumiko's friendship with Sachi Shibata. Why is Sumiko so willing to be Sachi's friend when she knows that Sachi lies? Sumiko also becomes friends with Frank, a Mohave boy, and Mr. Moto an older man who wants to plant a garden. "Friendship was really different from the way she had envisioned it all these years." (p. 163) Discuss what Sumiko expected from a friendship. What does the term "unlikely friendship" mean? How are Sumiko's relationships with Sachi, Frank and Mr. Moto "unlikely friendships"?

What is the symbolism of the moth on page 115?

Explain why the Native Americans resent the Japanese. Why is Sumiko more afraid of the Native Americans than the white people? What is her attitude toward both groups of people?

Why does the camp at Poston feel "final" to Sumiko? She doesn't want to leave when Auntie finds a job in a sewing factory near Chicago. Why does Uncle Kenzo tell her that she belongs with Auntie? Explain why Sumiko feels like an orphan when she leaves the camp. How does leaving the camp help her understand the real reason why Jiichan came to America?

RESEARCH AND ACTIVITIES

Every Friday night at dinner, Uncle asks each member of the family to share anything "special" on their minds. Role play a dinner conversation between Sumiko and her family on the day Pearl Harbor was bombed.

The Quakers were the only religious group speaking up for the Japanese. Research the Quaker beliefs, and write a letter to the editor of a newspaper that a Quaker might write in defense of the Japanese/Americans.

Sumiko describes the race track like the dioramas she had made in geography class. Make a diorama of the race track, the Poston Camp, or the flower farm where Sumiko lived.

Kadohata uses similes to create certain images (e.g. in reference to the neglected flower fields, "It was almost like watching an animal die and not trying to help"). Find other similes in the novel.

Mr. Muramoto had hosted a New Year's Day party for twenty years. This year, there was no party. Plan a New Year's Day party for Sumiko, Auntie, Tak-Tak, Ichiro, & Bull. Write a New Year's resolution for each of these characters.

Sumiko and her family are Buddhists. Find out the fundamental beliefs of the Buddhist faith. Write a journal entry where Sumiko questions some of her Buddhist beliefs.

When Sumiko was in third grade she wrote a paper titled "Dirt". Write the paper that Sumiko wrote.

The newspaper at the camp is called the Poston Chronicle. Ask students to write an article about one event at the camp that might be featured in the Poston Chronicle. For example: Mr. Moto's garden, the Christmas celebration, etc.

Read about the Poston Camp (javadc.org/poston.htm) and write a letter that Sumiko might write to Jiichan and Uncle about her life in the camp. Include remarks about what she will miss most about the camp when she moves with Auntie to Chicago.

Weedflower

By Cynthia Kadohata ISBN-13: 978-0-689-86574-9 ISBN-10: 0-689-86574-0 Atheneum Books for Young Readers AVAILABLE WHEREVER BOOKS ARE SOLD Simon & Schuster Children's Publishing

1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020 SimonSaysTEACH.com This reading group guide has been provided by Simon & Schuster for classroom, library, and reading group use. It may be reproduced in its entirety or excerpted for these purposes.

Prepared by Pat Scales, Director of Library Services, SC Governor's School for the Arts and Humanities, Greenville.

Read an Excerpt

Chapter One

THIS IS WHAT IT FELT LIKE TO BE LONELY:

1. Like everyone was looking at you. Sumiko felt this once in a while.

2. Like nobody was looking at you. Sumiko felt this a lot.

3. Like you didn't care about anything at all. She felt this maybe once a week.

4. Like you were just about to cry over every little thing. She felt this about once daily.

But not today! Sumiko jumped off the school bus and ran behind her house. Her family was working; she saw their small forms surrounded by bursts of color in the flower fields. "Jiichan!" she shouted to her grandfather. She waved an envelope at him. "I'm invited to a party!"

"Can't hear!"

"I'm invited to a party!"

Everybody was looking at her, but nobody seemed to understand what she was saying. Oh, forget it! She ran into the stable to look for her little brother, Tak-Tak, but he wasn't there. Baba just looked at her expectantly. She patted the old nag's yellow nose and said, "I'm invited to a party." Baba didn't change expressions.

She hurried inside the house to change into her work clothes. That morning Sumiko and some other kids in her sixth-grade class had received invitations to a birthday party this Saturday. One of the popular girls was holding a party and had decided at the last minute to invite everyone in the class. The invitation was embossed, and the lettering inside was gold. Sumiko had read the inside about a dozen times:

The invitation reminded Sumiko of the expensive valentines hercousin Ichiro gave to girls he especially liked.

She changed clothes behind the blankets her aunt and uncle had strung across the bedroom. She shared the room with Takao, a.k.a. Tak-Tak. Auntie and Uncle had strung the blankets up three weeks earlier when Sumiko turned twelve. She felt guilty because she actually liked the blankets, even though Tak-Tak had cried over them. He was almost six and he followed her around day and night. She loved him like crazy. But she still liked the blankets.

Sumiko stuck the invitation into her shirt pocket so that she could look at it now and then while she worked. This was the first class party she'd ever been invited to.

Through a fluke, Sumiko lived in a school district with few Japanese. She was the only Japanese girl in her class, whereas if she'd lived a few miles away, several Japanese girls would have been in the same class. The white girls were nice enough to her during recess, but she had never been invited to play on weekends or sleep over at anyone's house or anything like that.

She didn't used to worry about it as much as she did lately. The way Jiichan told the story, Sumiko had been born cheerful, had become sad when her parents died when Tak-Tak was a baby, had begun to get cheerful again, and now was just "starting to act like a female." He'd said that because she had asked for a mirror for her bureau so she could decide when it was time to start curling her long hair. Instead of a mirror, she'd gotten the blankets.

"Hurry!" Tak-Tak called out. "Or we won't have time to brush Baba."

She stepped around the blanket divider and saw that her brother had come in. "I'm invited to a party." She waved the invitation at him.

He looked at her blankly. He wore black-framed glasses that stayed attached to his head with an elastic band Auntie had made. The lenses were so thick, his eyes always looked big.

Tak-Tak clearly didn't understand the significance of her invitation. Finally he said, "We have to brush Baba. You promised me before you went to school."

He looked a little forlorn over the thought that she might have forgotten what she promised him. "Did you clean Baba's brush?" she asked.

He held up a clean horse brush. "I'll race you!"

She let Tak-Tak stay one step ahead of her as they ran outside to the stable. "You beat me!" she cried as they fell into some hay.

Sumiko smiled as Tak-Tak jumped up from the hay to brush the horse. Tak-Tak really adored Baba. Her nose dripped all the time, but that worked out fine because Tak-Tak liked gooey things. Sumiko sat up and looked out the stable door. Her cousins Bull and Ichiro were still tending the flowers, nineteen-year-old Bull wide and strong and twenty-three-year-old Ichiro slender and lean, graceful even in his farm clothes. Uncle was working at the far end of the fields among the carnations, which he always liked to take care of himself. The carnations grew in a makeshift, open-field greenhouse, where they were protected from extremes of sun or wind. Uncle was cutting some for tomorrow's wholesale flower market. Ichiro and Bull were pulling weeds among the stock. Local flower farmers called flowers grown in the field kusabana -- "weedflowers." Stock were weedflowers that emanated an amazing clovelike fragrance. Of all the flowers her family had ever grown, Sumiko loved them most.

Ragged white cheesecloth rippled above parts of the fields. Last spring Sumiko and Auntie had sewn cheesecloth tarps for the men to hang over the fields to protect the flowers -- except the stock, which didn't need protection.

Uncle dreamed of setting up a glass greenhouse someday and growing perfect carnations, but so far that was just talk. Only the wealthier Japanese farmers owned glass greenhouses. Uncle said you could control the elements better with a greenhouse. Perfection was the Holy Grail to Uncle. Sumiko thought that a lot of the flowers were perfect, but Uncle often looked critically at his carnations and said things like, "They would be perfect if we had a glass greenhouse." He never even considered whether the stock could reach perfection -- after all, they were just weedflowers.

Most of the greenhouse growers came from families who'd moved to America before laws were passed preventing those born in Asia from becoming citizens. Uncle and Jiichan had both been born in Japan. People born in Asia were not allowed to become American citizens, and those who weren't citizens were not allowed to own or lease land. Because her cousin Ichiro was born in the United States, the farm's lease was in his name instead of his father's.

Sumiko turned her attention back to the stable to check on her brother. Tak-Tak had climbed a stool and was brushing Baba's mane. Tak-Tak loved Sumiko best of anything in the world. But Sumiko thought maybe he loved the horse second best.

Now she saw her grandfather walk into the outhouse. That was always the first thing he did when he finished working. "I have to start the bathwater," she told Tak-Tak, who barely noticed as she hurried away. In the bathhouse she got kindling from a pile and placed it under the big tub. She lugged a few logs off the woodpile and placed them atop the kindling and started a fire. As soon as the bathwater started steaming, she would place a wooden platform in the tub so the bottom wouldn't be too hot to step in.

"Sumiko-chan!" her grandfather called from the outhouse. There was a crack in the wood that he always peered out of. Sometimes he liked to talk to the family right through the outhouse wall! He had no dignity because he was so old. Still, he made Sumiko smile a lot. She ran to the outhouse.

"Yes, Jiichan."

"When is party?" he said.

"I thought you didn't hear me."

"Whole neighborhood hear you," he said.

"It's Saturday."

He didn't speak. Sometimes he just stopped talking, and you didn't know whether you were supposed to wait at the outhouse or not. If you asked him if he wanted you to wait outside, he would snap that you had interrupted his train of thought. If you waited without asking, he would look surprised when he came out.

"I thinking, maybe it better I drive you to party instead of your uncle," he suddenly said. "I wait in car nearby in case you get hurt." Though Jiichan had lived in the United States for several decades, he didn't sound like it. Sometimes he spoke chanpon, which was a mix of Japanese and English; sometimes he spoke Japanese; and when he talked to Sumiko and Tak-Tak, he spoke mangled English.

Jiichan already seemed as obsessed with this party as Sumiko was.

"Jiichan! I'm not going to get hurt at a birthday party!" she said to the outhouse.

"I just thinking. But if you got no respect for old man opinion, never mind, never mind."

Sumiko laughed. "I'm going to be fine. Maybe they'll ask me to sing a song!" Was that what they did at birthday parties? She liked to sing. Once she'd even been chosen to sing a song alone during a school assembly. She'd gotten a little flustered and sung the same verse twice, but otherwise, she'd done great. She imagined a crowd of classmates surrounding her at the party.

"Sumiko!" Jiichan said. "Are you listening?"

"Sorry, Jiichan. What did you say?"

"I say go get your uncle!"

She shouted out, "Uncle! Jiichan wants you!" Uncle looked up from the fields and headed in.

"You break my eardrum," Jiichan said.

Sumiko returned to the bathhouse to check the water (not hot enough yet), went into the stable to check Tak-Tak (still brushing Baba), and hurried to the shed to grade the cut carnations Ichiro had just brought in from the field. He smiled as she passed.

The shed was yet another drafty building on the farm. Empty taru -- barrels -- that soy sauce came in were piled on top of one another along the walls, waiting to be filled with carnations for tomorrow morning's market. Sumiko was supposed to grade the flowers and put them into the taru. That was one of her main jobs.

Flower farmers charged more for their most beautiful, biggest, nearly flawless flowers. Sumiko graded the best carnations #1 and the next best #2. Only carnations were graded inside the shed. The stock were graded right out in the field.

The worst carnations that farmers sold were splits -- flowers where the calyx didn't hold the petals together right. They were still pretty, but they were bought by funeral parlors or else cheap markets like street-corner flower vendors. Jiichan said men bought street-corner flowers on the way home from work on days when their wives were mad at them. He said someday he was going to write a book of all his theories.

Sometimes Sumiko slipped a #1 flower into the splits because she felt sorry for the poor dead people who were getting defective flowers. But she also felt guilty that a good flower might be wasted on dead people who wouldn't even notice. So either way she felt a little bad.

As she picked up the first stem from the pile, Sumiko remembered proudly how Uncle had said she was the only one in the family whose hands were both quick and gentle -- perfect hands for grading. In fact, she was the only one in the family allowed to grade the carnations. That was one reason she knew how important she was to the farm. From the beginning, Uncle and Auntie had never asked her to work, but she still remembered lying in her new bedroom after her parents died, worrying that she and her brother would get sent to an orphanage. So the next day she'd gotten up and scrubbed all the floors. Jiichan still brought it up sometimes. "I remember when your parents die, all you do is scrub floor for week. We thought you crazy." And she had not stopped working since then.

She placed a batch of #1s into the taru. Tak-Tak came in and watched her for a moment. "Do you think Baba loves me or Bull or you more?" he asked.

"Maybe she loves all of us for different reasons."

"Why does she love me?"

"Because you brush her." He was silent, and she glanced at him. He was smiling to himself. Then his eyes grew curious. "Why does she love Bull?" he said.

"Because he was her first friend."

"Does she love you?"

"Yes, because I'm her friend too."

He followed her to the bathhouse to put the platform in the bottom of the tub, and then he followed her back to the shed.

Sumiko separated some of the bunches by color but mixed the colors in other bunches. Sometimes she took too long to bunch flowers because she liked them to look just so. Personally, she didn't favor the reds, pinks, and whites of carnations. She liked the stock better -- they came in just about every color. Lately, peach was her favorite stock color. In fact, she'd made Uncle plant a little section of just peach so that she could use the flowers for the dinner table.

She kept the shed door open so she could keep track of who was walking in and out of the bathhouse. The men bathed in order of age -- Jiichan first, then Uncle, then Ichiro, then Bull, and then Tak-Tak. After that came Auntie and, finally, Sumiko. Every night while Tak-Tak took his bath, Sumiko went inside the house to start the rice. She always divided daytime and nighttime by when Tak-Tak finished his bath. After he finished bathing, it was considered nighttime, and just a few mealtime chores remained before Sumiko allowed herself to stop working.

Tonight she couldn't wait until dinner was over so she could take the time to study her two best dresses and decide what to wear to the party. Auntie had made her a new dress a few months ago for a wedding. The dress actually rustled when she walked! She also owned a mint green school dress that she liked. It was a hard decision.

Copyright © 2006 by Cynthia Kadohata