Facts:
Date finished: 7-8-08
Author: Cynthia Kadohata
Category: Children’s, historical fiction
Published: 2006
Pages: 257
Rating: 3/5
Basic Plot:
Sumiko’s family runs a flower farm in California, growing beautiful carnations and stock (weedflower) for the local flower market. She dreams of someday running her own flower shop, but life intervenes when Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. Suddenly, Sumiko’s world is turned upside down as they’re packed off to one of the internment camps. Lifeinside the camp changes Sumiko, her dreams and her view of the world.
My assessment:
I came away from Weedflower fairly unsatisfied. OK, probably quite unsatisfied. I never really got into any of the characters and so much of the “action” just didn’t really move me. I’ve always found the whole internment just deplorable and a huge black mark on our permanent record, but this book just didn’t really incite any kind of passion in me about the event. Sumiko just seems to be blithely going along with life, accepting her fate, not really suffering. It was just difficult to care much about her. I found her cousins much more interesting, although we really get one-dimensional views of them.
Just generally a disappointment. Didn’t even learn a lot about the period from it.
