Historical fiction: Weedflower by Cynthia Kadohata

Kadohata, Cynthia. WEEDFLOWER. New York: Atheneum Books for Young Readers, 2006. ISBN 0689865740.







Sumiko is a 12 year old orphan who lives with her younger brother on her aunt and uncle's flower farm in California in 1941. Feeling different from her classmates because she is the only Japanese girl in her class, she consoles herself with dreams of owning her own flower shop someday. But then comes December 6th, and the events of Pearl harbor. Overnight, Sumiko's whole life changes again. Her grandfather and uncle are sent away to a prison camp for the crime of being born in Japan. Sumiko, her brother, cousins, and aunt are shipped to the internment camp in Poston, Arizona. There, her younger brother runs wild because there's no school. Sumiko starts growing a flower garden with her neighbor, Mr. Moto. She meets a boy, Frank, from the nearby Indian reservation and the two of them become friends, even though the Indians resent the Japanese, who don't want to be there in the first place. Sumiko's cousins joij the US military, to fight for a country that ostensibly doesn't even want them because of their ethnicity. Sumilo struggle sto make sense of all these conflicting occurences, scrapes away at the dirt of her flower garden and survives.

In an author's endnote, Ms. Kadohata tells us about how the internment camps actually improved life for the Indians, since they inherited the facilities once the Japanese internees began returning to return to their homes.

Awards and Honors:

• Cybils, 2006 Finalist Middle Grade Fiction United States


• Jane Addams Children's Book Award, 2007 Winner Books for Older Children United States

Reviews:
Kirkus (Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 2006 (Vol. 74, No. 6))
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.

Claudia Mills, Ph.D. (Children's Literature)
Newbery Medalist Kadohata (Kira-Kira) presents another story of a Japanese-American family: Sumiko’s family are flower farmers in California; too poor to afford a glass greenhouse, they grow kusabana, or weedflowers, flowers grown in the open field, hardy enough to bear changing weather conditions. Sumiko and her family are forced to find a way to survive and flourish during the intolerably harsh conditions of relocation and internment of Japanese-Americans following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. Although this painful and shameful chapter of American history is now familiar to many readers, Kadohata excels in accumulating the heart-piercing details that make it all too vividly real: Sumiko’s excitement about finally being invited to a classmate’s birthday party, from which she is subsequently uninvited because of her race; farewells to a beloved horse and dog; the crushing heat, dust, and boredom of life in the camps, where Sumiko tries to grow flowers again in the barren, sandy soil. Sumiko’s emerging friendship with a Native American boy, resentful of the relocation camp’s presence on his reservation, adds another dimension to the internment narrative, which builds to an unsettled, but somehow still hopeful, conclusion.

Connections:
This book lends itself well to Readers Theatre. Some recommended chapters to start with are Chapter 4 where Sumiko gets turned away from her classmate's birthday party, Chapter 10 where Sumiko and her family leave for the internment camp, or Chapter 28 where Sumiko and her cousin meet with Frank and his older brother and find out that the Japanese and Indians have a lot in common.

Poetry Break - Poetry with a refrain

map of the Erie Canal

Introduction: When my children were very young, their book-of-the-month club sent us a copy of The Erie Canal (Illustrated by Peter Spier. North Country Books 1999.). Unfortunately out of print now, this wonderful poem picture book has memorable water-color illustrations that portray life and activity on the Erie Canal in the 1800's. The last page is the poem with the musical accompaniment. The book is buried in a box in my garage somewhere to save for my grandchildren someday, but it was one of my children’s favorite bedtime books. I was able to find the poem in a more recent book also. This poem/song is unusual in that it has a refrain within the verses along with a separate refrain.

The Erie Canal
Author unknown

I’ve got a mule, her name is Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
She’s a good ol’ worker and a good ol’ pal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
We’ve hauled some barges in our day
Fill’d with lumber, coal, and hay,
And we know every inch of the way
from Albany to Buffalo.

(Refrain)
Low bridge, everybody down!
Low bridge, for we’re comin’ to a town.
And you’ll always know your neighbor,
You’ll always know your pal,
If you’ve ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

We better get along on our way, ol’ gal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
‘Cause you bet your life I’d never part with Sal,
Fifteen miles on the Erie Canal.
Git up there, mule, here comes a lock,
We’ll make Rome ‘bout six o’clock,
One more trip an’ back we’ll go,
Right back home to Buffalo.

(Refrain)
Low bridge, everybody down!
Low bridge, for we’re comin’ to a town.
And you’ll always know your neighbor,
You’ll always know your pal,
If you’ve ever navigated on the Erie Canal.

(From APPLE FOR THE TEACHER: THIRTY SONGS FOR SINGING WHILE YOU WORK collected and introduced by Jane Yolen. Harry N Abram, Inc., Publisher 2005)

Extension
History: The Erie Canal played a major role in the settlement of the Northern United States in the early 1800’s. It established a waterway between Lake Erie and the Hudson River, opening the area up to increased settlement and transportation of goods. When studying US history, teach the students this song and show them maps of how this area was opened to expansion by this milestone in American ingenuity.
Geography: The 5 themes of geography are depicted very well in a study of the Erie Canal. Location and place include making Lake Erie and the Hudson River accessible to each other. Movement and area are shown by the way the Erie Canal opened this region up for settlement and commerce. Human-environment interaction is illustrated by the way the Canal was dug and constructed through the mountains.

graphic from: http://encarta.msn.com/encnet/features/mapcenter/map.aspx?refid=701512334 Accessed 4/10/2009.

Poetry Break: Biographical Poem

Introduction: When I was in grade school in New Jersey, our class took a field trip to a Civil War era house that had been a station for the Underground Railroad. I still remember looking down into that small hole in amazement and wondering what kind of life a person would be escaping from to be willing to hide in such a tiny, dank hole in the ground. When slaves were ready to escape, they’d hang a quilt outside their slave quarters, and that night, as the other slaves heard a whippoorwill call from the fields beyond, they would silently bid farewell to the soon-to-be ex-slave escaping with Harriet Tubman. Harriet and her followers would follow the North Star, which was part of the Big Dipper constellation – slaves referred to this as the Drinking Gourd.

That same history unit, I learned more about Harriet Tubman and her amazing life. Her part of the Underground Railroad was the path from Maryland to Philadelphia. Harriet was never caught and neither were any of the slaves she led to freedom, despite frequent episodes of narcolepsy caused by a beating inflicted during her slavery childhood. That same beating created a large indentation in the side of her head, so she always covered it with a head scarf.

The Whippoorwill Calls
By Beverly McLoughland

No one hears her
Coming
Through the woods
At night
For she is like
A whippoorwill
Moving through the trees
On silent wings.

No one sees her
Hiding
In the woods
By day
For she is like
A whippoorwill
Blending into leaves
On the forest floor.

And one night
The whippoorwill calls
And the warm air
Carries the haunting sound
Across the fields
And into the small dark cabins.

And only the slaves know
It is Harriet.

(From LIVES: POEMS ABOUT FAMOUS AMERICANS selected by Lee Bennett Hopkins. Harper Collins Publishers 1999)

Extension:
1. Integrate social studies and math by having your students look up the average walking pace of a human, then. Look up the map of Harriet’s route and calculate how many miles it is, then estimate how many days it would take to walk from Maryland to Philadelphia along that path.
2. Integrate social studies and art by showing students various websites and images of Underground Railroad quilts. Provide drawing materials and graph paper for students to design their own quilt blocks. Or you can use the interactive website, " Make Your Own Secret Quilt Message."
3. Performance and Poetry – Have your students act out this poem. There are also other poems about Harriet Tubman and the Underground Railroad that lend themselves well to performance, such as “Harriet Tubman” by Eloise Greenfield and the folksong, “Follow the Drinking Gourd.”

graphic from: www.stmarksbridgeport.org/newsletter2.html Accessed 3/25/2009

Poetry Break Review - Poetry that does not rhyme

Introduction: One of the very first things I did when I moved to San Antonio was visit the Alamo. You walk through a greenery covered breezeway to enter the grounds. As soon as you enter the gardens behind the Mission itself, it's as if all sound is cut off - this is hallowed ground. This silence can be felt in the daytime as well as the nighttime. Do the tourists feel the reverence, or are they too busy being tourists?

Alamo Plaza at Night
by Carol Coffee Reposa

Even now, tourists come
To gaze up at the chipped facade,
Weathered double doors
Oaks twisting into dark, floodlights
Trained along their branches.
Cameras flash agaist white limestone
Pocked with centuries
And gunshots long ago.

Within the walls
And Roman arches
Heavy with their bars
Are tidy gardens:
Boston fern droops langidly
Toward fresh-cut grass
and copper plants.
Goldfish wallow in their quiet ponds.

Outside people talk about the mission,
Where to go, what to eat.
Visitors brood over maps
And time-lapse shots, children peering
At old plaques, words lost
Within a diesel's whine, the clop-clop
Of a horse's hooves, wind rising
In dark trees, voices gathered
Finally
Into the stones.

(From A STUDENTS’ TREASURY OF TEXAS POETRY by Billy Bob Hill, Editor. TCU Press 2002)

Extension:
1. Read this poem as an introduction to the Texas Revolution in a Texas History class.
2. If you have the misfortune to not live in Texas, this poem could be read as an introduction to the Texan Revolution in an American history class.
3. Every culture has its special places – the Alamo, Arlington Cemetery, Osaka castle, and Tiananmen Square; just to name a few. In a high school world history class, read this poem, then lead a class discussion on why cultures need those special places.

Graphic from: http://static.panoramio.com/photos/original/1573869.jpg accessed 3/6/2009