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Orchards - Holly Thompson
Orchards
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4.00 60
Winner of the APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult LiteratureAn ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults BookAfter a classmate commits suicide, Kana Goldberg—a half-Japanese, half-Jewish American—wonders who is responsible. She and her cliquey friends said some thoughtless things to... show more
Winner of the APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult LiteratureAn ALA-YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults BookAfter a classmate commits suicide, Kana Goldberg—a half-Japanese, half-Jewish American—wonders who is responsible. She and her cliquey friends said some thoughtless things to the girl. Hoping that Kana will reflect on her behavior, her parents pack her off to her mother's ancestral home in Japan for the summer. There Kana spends hours under the hot sun tending to her family's mikan orange groves.Kana's mixed heritage makes it hard to fit in at first, especially under the critical eye of her traditional grandmother, who has never accepted Kana's father. But as the summer unfolds, Kana gets to know her relatives, Japan, and village culture, and she begins to process the pain and guilt she feels about the tragedy back home. Then news about a friend sends her world spinning out of orbit all over again.
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Format: hardcover
ISBN: 9780385739771 (038573977X)
Publisher: Delacorte Books for Young Readers
Pages no: 336
Edition language: English
Bookstores:
Community Reviews
Word Spelunking
Word Spelunking rated it
0.0
Holly Thompson's Orchards is told in gorgeous and thought-provoking prose as it explores the summer in one young girl's life as she travels to Japan. Kana is half Japanese, half Jewish, and when a classmate commits suicide, her parents send her to relatives for the summer to reflect on what happened...
Bibliophilic Monologues
Bibliophilic Monologues rated it
4.0 Orchards
This verse novel by Holly Thompson flips the perspective on bullying and shows what happens to the bullies when their bullying has tragic consequences. Thompson’s novel follows Kana’s displacement from New York to an orange orchard in Japan, her mother’s place of birth and home. The novel is particu...
JonathanPeto
JonathanPeto rated it
If you look, you'll see that Holly Thompson is one of my Goodreads friends. I'm under no pressure to give her book a good review though. I only found her here after she visited my school. Otherwise, we are not acquainted.I am acquainted with her topic. Not suicide, but Japan. And orchards, both appl...
simplyreading
simplyreading rated it
4.0 Orchards
Orchards is about when Kana Goldberg is sent to visit her relatives in Japan after a girl in her middle school commits suicide. Once she gets there she keeps thinking of Ruth (That classmate) and wonders if she was partially to blame for driving Ruth to commit suicide. The book goes over the course ...
Peace, Love & Books
Peace, Love & Books rated it
3.0 Orchards
Interesting and often moving but this is another verse novel that seems better suited to prose than verse.
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