A Bank Street Best Children's Book of the YearA Booklist Editors' ChoiceA Horn Book Fanfare Best of 2019A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019A Parents' Choice Gold Award WinnerSo California Independent Booksellers Middle Grade Book of the YearALA Notable BookNational Book Award LonglistFive Starred Reviews World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken. America, the only home she's ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family--and thousands of other innocent Americans--because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan, the country they've been forced to move to, the country they hope will be the family's saving grace, where they were supposed to start new and better lives, is in shambles because America dropped bombs of their own--one on Hiroshima unlike any other in history. And Hanako's grandparents live in a small village just outside the ravaged city. The country is starving, the black markets run rampant, and countless orphans beg for food on the streets, but how can Hanako help them when there is not even enough food for her own brother? Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn't mean it can't be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi --fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers. Gr 5 Up-World War II has ended and 12-year-old Hanako, her five-year old brother Akira, and their American-born parents have spent the past four years imprisoned in a series of internment camps. Hana's parents accept an offer from the U.S. government to renounce their American citizenship and expatriate to Japan. Their plan is to live with Hanako's father's parents, poor tenant farmers outside the city of Hiroshima. Hanako is hopeful for her family's new chance in Japan and immediately loves her Jiichan and Baachan but is faced with the realities of life in an unfamiliar, war-blighted country. Resources are scarce; as her family toils endlessly to keep food in the house, Hanako is torn between providing for her family and sharing what little she has with the people she encounters around Hiroshima. In her trademark style, Kadohata unfurls the complex web of the girl's inner thoughts in a concise yet cutting third-person narrative. Hanako attempts to discern what it means to be good and how to belong in a place where one is not truly welcome. An afterword gives further details on the history of internment and expatriate Americans in Japan. VERDICT A first purchase for collections needing complex and emotionally impactful historical fiction.-Darla Salva Cruz, Suffolk Cooperative Library System, Bellport, NYα(c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted. "This is a book to sink deep into." Author: Horn Book Magazine, starred review he New York Times Book Review : "...it's Hanako herself -- warm, thoughtful and deeply affectionate -- who sets the tone for this transcendent story of love and family. [Hanako and her family] pass through the bombed city to live in a village of tenant farmers, so poor that a single potato is precious and Hanako cannot afford to help the scarred boy she tries to befriend. These are devastating circumstances, but Kadohata explains the history behind them in simple, direct prose, perfectly calibrated for younger readers. Still, her greatest achievement is in never losing sight of the child at the center of her story...The book is filled with unexpected joys, and the most sustaining are the connections Hanako feels with her family." Cynthia Kadohata is the author of the Newbery Medal-winning novel Kira-Kira, the National Book Award winner The Thing About Luck , the Jane Addams Peace Award and Pen USA Award winner Weedflower , Cracker!, Outside Beauty , A Million Shades of Gray , Half a World Away , and Checked . She lives in California. Julia Kuo is the creator of 20 Ways to Draw a Cat and 44 Other Awesome Animals as well as the charming board book Everyone Eats . Julia also created the cover and interior artwork for Newbery Medal-winning author Cynthia Kadohata's The Thing About Luck and A Place to Belong and New York Times bestselling author Jenny Han's Clara Lee and the Apple Pie Dream . She lives in Chicago. A Place to Belong CHAPTER ONE This was the secret thing Hanako felt about old people: she really didn’t understand them. It seemed like they just sat there and didn’t do much. Sometimes they were rude to you, and yet you had to be extremely, extremely polite to them. And then when they were nice to you, they asked you lot