Today I am so excited to share a new picture book that I got lucky enough to win in a Library Thing giveaway. I loved it. Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms, by author Robert Paul Weston and Illustrator Misa Saburi, is a moving story of a young American immigrant as she journeys from Japan into a new life, and grieves an unexpected death. It is a story of love that transcends generations, continents, and languages and carries Sakura through new seasons of her life.
Sakura, whose name means cherry blossom, loves to sit with her Obaachan under the cherry trees in spring. They picnic together sharing bento lunches and stories. Obaachan teaches Sakura that seeing the cherry trees bloom is “always finest with friends.”
When Sakura’s dad gets a new job in the U.S., she and her family must leave Obaachan behind and move to a new country with a new house, a new school, and a new language to learn. The new English words are hard to get used to, they “nipped and snapped on her tongue like the tang of pickled plums.” Eventually Sarkura finds a new friend in her neighbor Luke. Just when it seems like she is adjusting, her grandmother falls ill and the family must journey back to Japan to say goodbye to Obaachan.
This part of the book is especially sad, but also written very gently. As we have just lost two of Bonnie’s great grandparents, seeing Sakura say goodbye to her grandmother was very touching to her. After we were done reading she asked me to go back and read these pages again, so I think she related a lot to emotion conveyed in the illustration of Sakura visiting her grandmother in the hospital bed.
Sakura returns with her family to the U.S., and her grief freshly reminds her of all that she misses from her life in Japan. Luke tries to cheer her up. They look at the stars together through his telescope (a favorite line: flowers are like stars,”/ said Sakura. “They blossom, / they sparkle, and then / they fade, so we treasure them / because one day they vanish.) Finally in the spring, Sakura is surprised to see her new city explode in the pink of the cherry blossom festival. She thinks about what Obaachan taught her, and is able to enjoy the beauty of the cherry trees, because she knows they are best shared with her friends and family.
One of my favorite things about this book is that it is written in a series of traditional Japanese Tanka poems. The author explains more about the form in the backmatter of the book, making it a great book to include in a poetry unit. Full of beautiful lyrical language Weston captures both grief and the immigrant experience with subtly and empathy, and Saburi brings the landscapes to life with her beautiful, textured illustrations.
You can pick up a copy of Sakura’s Cherry Blossoms from Chattanooga’s local indie bookstore here.
Little Extras:
Check out the discussion guide from Tundra here.
If you are in Chattanooga, the closest Cherry Blossom Festival I could find was in Nashville. This year the festival is on April 14th, and looks like a fun way to celebrate spring and explore more about Japanese culture. Who wants to go with us? 🙂
