Cynthia Kadohata | |
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Born | Chicago, Illinois, USA | July 2, 1956
Occupation | Writer |
Alma mater | USC |
Genre | Children's and Young-adult literature |
Notable works |
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Notable awards | Whiting Award 1991 Newbery Medal 2005 PEN USA 2006 National Book Award 2013 |
Children | Sammy |
Website | |
www |
Cynthia Kadohata (born July 2, 1956) [1] is a Japanese American children's writer best known for her young adult novel Kira-Kira which won the Newbery Medal in 2005. [2] She won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2013 for The Thing About Luck. [3]
Kadohata was born in Chicago, Illinois. [1] Her first published short story appeared in The New Yorker in 1986. She received a BA in journalism from the University of Southern California in 1979. [4] She also attended graduate programs at the University of Pittsburgh and Columbia University.
Kadohata started her writing career with short story submissions to magazines. Her first publication, titled Charlie O., was published in 1986 in The New Yorker. [5] Later stories were published in The Pennsylvania Review, Grand Street, and Ploughshares. [6]
Weedflower , her second children's book, was published in Spring 2006. It is about the Poston internment camp where her father was imprisoned during World War II. Her third children's novel, Cracker! The Best Dog in Vietnam about the Vietnam War from a war dog's perspective, was published in January 2007 by Atheneum Books for Young Readers.
Outside Beauty, another children's novel, was published in 2008. It is about a 13-year-old girl and her three sisters, all fathered by different men and what happens when she and her sisters are separated from each other after their mother gets into an accident.
At least two of Kadohata's books touch on the topic of chick sexing. The family of the main character in her first novel, 1989's The Floating World, and also the family of the protagonist in 2004's Kira-Kira are employed at chicken hatcheries separating male chicks from female. [7] Kadohata's inspiration was her own personal experience. Her father was a chick sexer during her childhood. [8]
As of January 2021, Kadohata lived in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, son, and dogs. [9]
The John Newbery Medal, frequently shortened to the Newbery, is a literary award given by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA), to the author of "the most distinguished contributions to American literature for children". The Newbery and the Caldecott Medal are considered the two most prestigious awards for children's literature in the United States. Books selected are widely carried by bookstores and libraries, the authors are interviewed on television, and master's theses and doctoral dissertations are written on them. Named for John Newbery, an 18th-century English publisher of juvenile books, the winner of the Newbery is selected at the ALA's Midwinter Conference by a fifteen-person committee. The Newbery was proposed by Frederic G. Melcher in 1921, making it the first children's book award in the world. The physical bronze medal was designed by Rene Paul Chambellan and is given to the winning author at the next ALA annual conference. Since its founding there have been several changes to the composition of the selection committee, while the physical medal remains the same.
The Randolph Caldecott Medal, frequently shortened to just the Caldecott, annually recognizes the preceding year's "most distinguished American picture book for children". It is awarded to the illustrator by the Association for Library Service to Children (ALSC), a division of the American Library Association (ALA). The Caldecott and Newbery Medals are considered the most prestigious American children's book awards. Beside the Caldecott Medal, the committee awards a variable number of citations to runners-up they deem worthy, called the Caldecott Honor or Caldecott Honor Books.
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Weedflower is a 2006 American children's historical novel by Cynthia Kadohata, the author of the award-winning Kira-Kira. The cover photography of the first edition is by Kamil Vojnar. The story is set in the United States during World War II and told from the perspective of 12-year-old Japanese-American Sumiko. A 6.5-hour-long audiobook version of Weedflower, read by Kimberly Farr, has been published.
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