1001 cranes

Review by Booklist Review

When her parents' marriage starts to implode in northern California, 12-year-old Angela is shipped off to Los Angeles to spend the summer with her maternal, Japanese American grandparents and aunt. At first, Angela resents the move, especially the hours spent in her grandparents' 1001 Cranes room, where the family creates elaborate origami displays for sale. She also struggles to communicate with her taciturn family, particularly her grandmother. Gradually, though, she finds comfort and new confidence as she masters the intricate paper folding techniques and discovers new ways to reach out to those around her. Hirahara, best known for her adult mysteries, offers a quiet, contemplative story that captures a girl's first steps into adolescence amid family grief and reconciliation. The story's gentle pace and sometimes superfluous detail may frustrate some readers, but Angela's questions about her family history and Japanese American culture, her acute sensitivity, and her heartache will resonate with young people of all backgrounds, particularly those who, like Angela, yearn to be the glue that fastens . . . parents together again. --Engberg, Gillian Copyright 2008 Booklist

From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.

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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review

In her first book for young readers, Edgar-winner Hirahara examines ruptured relationships and reinforced cultural heritage. Twelve-year-old Angela, the narrator, has been sent to spend the summer with her maternal grandparents outside Los Angeles, originally because her parents need to address the problems in their relationship. She's uncomfortable around stern Grandma Michi, an expert on things Japanese--unlike her much warmer paternal grandmother, Baa-chan, who even with that name claims to be "100 percent American." Taught that displays of 1001 paper cranes have become a Japanese-American wedding tradition, Angela is put to work folding cranes for her grandmother's business. Hirahara writes lyrically of folding (at one stage the paper "resembles a gold kite waiting to be released in the wind"), and as Angela learns that her father has moved out, origami convincingly becomes a "medicine." Throughout the summer she becomes privy to the secret wounds in other people's hearts (a tough bride, an older neighbor, her own mother and, finally, Grandma Michi), and sustains a mild injury to her own. Although some story lines resolve too neatly, readers will respond to Angela's contemporary voice as she discovers the value of evolving traditions. Ages 10-up. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

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Review by School Library Journal Review

Gr 5-8-Twelve-year-old Angela Kato is not thrilled at the prospect of leaving her home in a San Francisco suburb in order to spend the summer with her disapproving Grandma Michi, her strange Aunt Janet, and her good-natured grandfather in their unattractive, crowded house in smog-filled Los Angeles. Her time will be spent folding origami "1001-cranes displays," considered good luck for weddings, for her grandparents' business. Besides missing her friends, Angela knows that her parents are separating again, and that her dad has already rented an apartment. Once in LA, Angela meets several new people who have burdens of their own. A younger girl, Rachel, has just been adopted, and Angela observes that her grandmother acts far more lovingly to this child than she does to Angela. Next door, two sisters-in-law seem to hate each other even while they are involved in planning a celebration for their parents-in-law. Unexpectedly, Angela meets a boy who wants to date her, and she tries to keep him a secret from her watchful family. Her colorful, bold voice captures the excitement of her first love as well as the anxiety of not understanding the many secrets of the adults around her. By experiencing her family's support, by learning about her Japanese heritage, and by acknowledging the various ways that love is expressed, Angela emerges into a strong, caring person.-Lillian Hecker, Town of Pelham Public Library, NY (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

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Review by Kirkus Book Review

Relationships aren't easy. They are particularly difficult when you are only 12 years old, watching your parents get ready to divorce. To spare Angie, her parents send her to her grandparents, who live in a small town outside of Los Angeles. Without parents or friends, and with no real ties to this new community, Angie feels disconnected and uncertain about where her life is headed. She is put to work by her stern Grandma Michi making origami cranes for good-luck displays within the Japanese-American community, but this doesn't help...it just makes her feel more disoriented. What will happen to her family? Why has her father moved out of their house? Why is Grandma Michi so stern with her, but so caring with another young girl in the neighborhood? She's grown up in an environment of "no monku" but feels there is plenty to complain about right now. Well-written and episodic, this is an easy read that seeks to explain how relationships work or don't, and to reassure readers that it is possible to survive even the worst. (Fiction. 10 & up) Copyright ©Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.

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Monku with a Side of Smog No monku, my dad tells me before my mother and I leave, but I think that it's easy for him to say. He's not the one going away. "Monku," which means "complaining" or "complain," is about the only Japanese word I know. And it may be the only Japanese word my parents know. But they make up for not knowing much Japanese by using "monku" all the time. Like when they told me that I couldn't go to a midnight concert with my friends: no monku. And when they told me that I couldn't quit piano lessons: no monku. And now about my going away for the summer: no monku, again. My dad claims that we Katos don't monku. The rule doesn't apply to my mom. She's kept her maiden name; she'll forever be an Inui. My first name is Angela, and I know that's no big deal, but if you consider who I'm named after, it might be. I got my name from an Angela who was on the FBI's Ten Most Wanted list back in the seventies. She's black and wore her Afro combed out like cotton candy. I know this only because I searched online for her one day. She's a radical, like my parents are, or maybe used to be. Now, don't get me wrong--my parents aren't hippies. They are too young to be real hippies; I guess they were involved in a second wave of hippiedom but aren't part of that world anymore. My dad, for example, is extra-neat, and my mom's always buying the latest deodorant to make sure her pits don't smell. They are both super-strict and limit the number of hours I can watch TV or surf the Internet. I don't even have a cell phone, even though my friends got theirs four years ago, when we were eight years old. But in other ways, my parents are number-one rule breakers. They met, in fact, at some kind of sit-in at Stanford, which pretty much means that they sat on the floor of the dean's office until they got their way, or at least thought they'd gotten their way. I think my dad was even arrested, though he won't admit it no matter how many times I ask. So it makes sense that Angela Davis was my parents' role model. Well, at least enough of one that they'd name their only kid after her. My middle name is Michiko, after my maternal grandmother. My mother doesn't get along with her. My dad says it's because they're too much alike. I haven't made up my mind about Grandma Michi yet, because when I'm around her, she's always busy doing something else. I've been to Grandma Michi and Gramps's house twelve times. I know this exact number because we go to Los Angeles once a year, during New Year's, which is important for Japanese people. My grandparents take us to the Buddhist temple near their house and we watch men use mallets to pound hot rice into this sticky goop they call mochi. Then the women, some of them wearing nets and caps over their hair, take the hot goop into the kitchen and spread it out on a floured wooden board. This next part is my favorite: we then tear the mochi with our fingers and make balls the size of eggs. The elderly ladies, including Grandma Michi, sit at a special table where they spoon red beans (actually, they are more brown) into the middle of the mochi and form the rice goop around them so the beans are a surprise in the middle. The red beans are called an, which sounds like when you open your mouth wide for the doctor. I think they taste better than chocolate. That's why Gramps calls me An-jay instead of Angie. I could eat an all day. In five hours, we'll be seeing Gramps and Grandma Michi and it's not even close to New Year's. It's late June, summertime, when I'm supposed to be hanging out with my friends at home. Mill Valley, where we live, is just north of San Francisco, beyond the Golden Gate Bridge. Our house reminds me of a tree house, because it is surrounded by cedars, pines, and redwoods. My father teaches me the names of plants. He pulls the leaves off low branches and makes me smell and touch them. He says that even city girls need to know about green living things. Now I close my eyes tight and picture the trees. When I open my eyes, I'm still in the backseat of our car; my mother is driving. It's just the two of us. My mother is pretty, I have to admit. A lot prettier than me. She doesn't quite look like those hula girls on the commercials for Hawaii vacations, but she comes close. Her nose goes up like an elf's, but her skin is smooth, without wrinkles and spots like other mothers have. While my hair is frizzy, like my dad's, her long hair falls straight, like a waterfall. She doesn't care that she's up front by herself, because she gets to choose what CDs to play. She likes Sly and the Family Stone and all the Motown hits from the sixties and the seventies. "Real music," according to her. "Mom's Funk Junk Stuff," Dad used to call it. FJS, FJS. I can't remember the last time Dad teased Mom. I miss it. "What do you think Daddy's doing now?" I ask Mom. It's Friday, and he usually doesn't work on Fridays. Mom pushes out her lower jaw. "He's probably watching some replay of a game on TV." I want to ask if he's at our house or his new apartment, but Mom may not even know about the apartment. I figured it out because the apartment manager called a couple of days ago and I answered the phone. Even though I told the woman I'd give the message to my father, I didn't. I first tried to write a note, but my fingers began to shake and I couldn't even hold on to a pen. Later the words got caught in my throat and never came out. I don't know what this new apartment means. Dad has moved out before, but he's come back. For good, I thought until recently. I don't want to tell my mom about the phone call, because it might make everything worse. Maybe my dad's just thinking about it. I don't know. Excerpted from 1001 Cranes by Naomi Hirahara All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.

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