Kira - Kira

kira-kira(kee' ra kee' ra): glittering; shiningGlittering. That's how Katie Takeshima's sister, Lynn, makes everything seem. The sky iskira-kirabecause its color is deep but see-through at the same time. The sea iskira-kirafor the same reason. And so are people's eyes. When Katie and her family move from a Japanese community in Iowa to the Deep South of Georgia, it's Lynn who explains to her why people stop them on the street to stare. And it's Lynn who, with her special way of viewing the world, teaches Katie to look beyond tomorrow. But when Lynn becomes desperately ill, and the whole family begins to fall apart, it is up to Katie to find a way to remind them all that there is always something glittering --kira-kira-- in the future.Luminous in its persistence of love and hope,Kira-Kirais Cynthia Kadohata's stunning debut in middle-grade fiction.

Cynthia Kadohata is a novelist who has also had stories published in The New Yorker, Grand Street Magazine, and Ploughshares. The New York Times called her "a luminous new voice in fiction" with the publication of her first novel, The Floating World. A Whiting Award fellow, she lives in Los Angeles, California.