Kira-Kira, by Cynthia Kodohata

Identifying the theme of a story is mentioned several times throughout Kira-Kira, however, as much as Kodohata attempts to tie her own story together with a number of themes, it feels disjointed and forced. Katie’s life begins in a Japanese-American community in Iowa. Her parents have a grocery store and all is well with the family of five, including her sister, Lynn, and brother, Sammy, until they must move to Georgia for work after having to close the store.

Katie’s parents find work at a chicken plant and Katie and her siblings spend a lot of time taking care of one another since their parents are working all of the time for next to nothing. Kodohata brings forth the horrible working conditions of such factories, but one doesn't feel a real connection with any of the characters. It’s reads more like “a day in the life of…” story. This is true even with the added stress of Lynn becoming sick and eventually dying of lymphoma, Sammy being injured by an animal trap, and their father losing his job.

Kira-Kira means glittering or shining.  Though, some felt that this book was a star, as it was awarded the Newbery, despite the spotlight on the reform of working conditions and pay along with the treatment of Japanese Americans, I did not think it glittered.  

The Graveyard Book, by Neil Gaiman

Nobody would ever want to live in a graveyard, but Nobody, Nobody Owens, in fact did just that. When he fell out of his crib as a babe and crawled his way to the graveyard and away from his house, where his family had recently met a terrible end, most would make the bet that he would soon cross over to the other side as well. But he was received by the cold, yet warm, arms of the souls that inhabited the graveyard and brought up as normally as one can expect to be in a graveyard. 

Without a name, the boy is given the name Nobody, Bod for short, by the leader of the deceased, Silas, a powerful figure that has the ability to move between the living and the dead. Not long after Bod's arrival, Silas deems the Owens as his parents. Around the age of five Bod happens upon a girl, Scarlet, who is visiting the graveyard that had been renamed as a nature preserve. The two are fast friends and fast to find trouble. One day they stumbled upon a grave that is hundreds of years old and in the velvet dark are shocked by the unforgettable words of the indigo man. Scarlet moves away soon after, but the two never forget their adventures or one another. 

As Bod continues to grow, his experiences with the dead, ghouls and dreams mount along with his desire to connect with the living and find the man that had killed his family. At fourteen, Scarlet moves back to the town and enters into Bod's life again, through an odd set of circumstances and a particularly odd historian who spends almost as much time in the graveyard as those who have it as their final resting place. As the duo delves deeper into the events of the past, they find that people are not who they seem and though some try to bury the past, it has a way of coming back to life.