Category Archives: Young Adult Novels

One Bird

One BirdFawcett/Henry Holt (1996)

Winner of the 2015 the Children’s Literature Association’s Phoenix Award, 1996 Council for Wisconsin Writers Anne Powers Book-Length Fiction Award, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, and 1996 Hungry Mind Review Children’s Book of Distinction.

Kyoko Mori portrays a mother and a daughter trapped by traditional values and gender roles in Japan in the 1970s. Megumi’s mother leaves her unhappy marriage and returns to her father’s home in an isolated weaving village, forsaking her daughter and refusing to see or speak with her until she reaches adulthood. Left in the care of a strict, critical paternal grandmother and an absent father, Megumi, a fifteen-year-old raised as a Christian, stops going to church.

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Shizuko’s Daughter

Shizuko's DaughterFawcett/Henry Holt (1994)

A Publishers Weekly Best Book of 1993 Editors’ Choice, 1993 New York Times notable book, an American Library Association Best Book for Young Adults, and the Council of Wisconsin Writers Best Novel of 1993.

“Your mother would be very proud. . .” Yuki Okuda heard these words when she was achieving in school, excelling in sports, or displaying her art work. And she could always imagine the unexpressed thought that followed, “. . . if your mother hadn’t killed herself.”

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