The Butterfly Effect

Book review

Part l

1. Title : Kira-Kira

2. Author : Cynthia Kadohata

Kira-Kira is a young adult novel by Cynthia Kadohata.It won the Newbery Medal for children’s literature.

3. Publisher : AtheneumBooks

4. Data of publication : 2004

5. Pages : 244pp

1. 6. Major characters  

Joe-John Abondondalarama

Joe-John Abondondalarama is a figment of Katie's imagination. He is her idea of a perfect boyfriend; she often daydreams about how they will meet and the kind of life they will have with their seven children. Amber and Lynn laugh when she tells them about Joe-John, so she pretends that she is just kidding.

Amber

Amber is Lynn's best friend. She introduces Lynn to an American lifestyle, as well as to her ideas about how girls should behave and how they...

This book’s plot is about the close friendship between two Japanese to American sisters growing up in rural Georgia during the 1950 to 1960, and the despair when one sister becomes terminally ill.

Kira-kira, kira-kira. This is the sound of Katie's first word. This word means glistening. Katie lives with her mother, father, and sister in Iowa. When Mr. Kadohata gets a job offer in Georgia, he accepts on behalf of the entire family. Katie and her sister, Lynn, have a hard time surviving in the southern state with the other 32 Japanese immigrants. The two are so close to the other and such best friends. They are never quarrel or fight in their life.

As the plot progresses, Katie enters school,. And new member of their family, Katie and Lynn have a little brother-Sammy, and Lynn earns a new best friend from her beauty, a popular, selfish girl named Amber, and a boy named Gregg. Katie finds that Amber is changing Lynn in a way she doesn't like.

When Lynn becomes sick with anemia. Amber dumps her as a friend. Lynn becomes even more sick. Her parents buy a house that hope Lynn could be feel better. The house seemed to be curing Lynn, until Sammy gets caught in a metal animal trap during a picnic one day, distressing her. Lynn become blank and easy to angry. Finally the parents told to Katie that Lynn has lymphoma and Lynn could be die.

That year Katie is eleven, Lynn dies, alone on New Year's day, when Katie goes outside for a break shortly after caring for her. Katie realizes why Lynn had taught her the word kira-kira; she wanted to remind her to always look at the world as a shining place and to never lose hope. At this point, the Takeshima family almost falls apart, but Katie remembers Lynn's special way of looking at life, and finds a way to show her parents that there is always hope and something glittering –Kira-Kira in their future.