KATE NARITA: CHILDREN'S AUTHOR
  • Home
  • About
  • 100 Bugs
  • PODCAST
  • BLOG
  • Educators
  • AUTHOR VISITS
  • Contact

Day 19 of Summer 2019 #Bookaday Challenge: Paper Wishes

7/29/2019

0 Comments

 

Vlog Transcript Below

Picture
Slide 1: Hi! My name is Kate Narita. Today is day nineteen of my summer 2019 #bookaday challenge. I will be talking about Paper Wishes.
​

Slide 2: What happens in Paper Wishes is the ten-year-old main character, Manami, has to leave her island home in Washington. She’s forced to live in a Japanese-American internment camp. Since she has to leave her dog behind, she becomes mute. The novel is about how she finds her voice. She’s able to find her voice through gardening, art and making space in her heart for another dog.
Slide 3: If your students are unfamiliar with the Japanese-American internment experience, a good book to start with is Baseball Saved Us. Many students are familiar with baseball. Also, this book highlights the discrimination Japanese-Americans experienced when they left the camps as well. In the end of the book the main character is triumphant. The kids will enjoy that.
Picture
Picture
Slide 4: I first learned about the Japanese-American internment when I saw Chiura Obata’s art. It’s absolutely stunning. Here is one of his prints of Yosemite. 
Slide 5: He was interned at Topaz, which is a different internment camp then the one Manami was interned in. He started an art school for children. He was attacked in 1943 and after that a woman named Hisako Hibi took over the art school. Her granddaughter, Amy Lee-Tai wrote A Place Where Sunflowers Grow. Mari, the main character, uses art and gardening to overcome the challenges of her internment experience at the camp, just like the main character, Manami, uses art and gardening in Paper Wishes.
​
The Children of Topaz is an excellent nonfiction resource. It features a classroom diary of students who were interned at Topaz. These two resources go really well together.
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Slide 6: All in all, there were ten different Japanese-American internment camps. These next two resources come from peoples’ experiences in Poston, Arizona. The first one is a picture book Write to Me. This is about the postcards that interned Japanese-American children sent their librarian Clara Breed. In turn, she sent them letters, supplies and books which helped make their experience in the camps less harsh. 

If you have a student who is really into this topic, they might want to check out the nonfiction resource Dear Miss Breed. This is a very large book. It’s chock-full of information. Unless you have a student that’s really into nonfiction, they probably won’t be interested. However, if you have a student who wants to learn as much as they can, then I definitely recommend this resource.
Slide 7: The novel that Paper Wishes most reminds me of is The Night Diary by Veera Hiranandani. In The Night Diary, the main character, Nisha, also has to flee her home. She was living in India in 1947 when the British left India and split it into India and Pakistan. When that happened, the Hindi people were no longer welcome in Pakistan. As a result, Nisha has to leave the only home she has ever known to get to India so that she and her family will be safe. Like Manami, Nisha also loses her voice and struggles to find it throughout the novel. 
Picture
Slide 8: The last novel I’m going to talk about in this text set is Stealing Our Way Home by Cecilia Galante. Unlike Paper Wishes and The Night Diary this is not historical fiction. This is realistic fiction set in modern day times. The other thing that makes this novel different from the other two is that it’s a dual narrative. So, it alternates perspectives between the brother, Jack, and the sister, Pippa. What Pippa has in common with Manami and Nisha is that she, too, loses her voice. This happens after her mother dies, and she strugglest throughout the novel as well to find her voice.
0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Picture

    Chalk + Ink Chats

    Want to hang out with teachers who write and writers who teach? Fill out this form to join our 
    next chat on Sunday, 1/19/25 at noon EST with
    April Jones Prince, Jody Little, Josh Galarza, Katrina Moore, and Zetta Elliott. We'll talk about author's craft. Feeling generous?
    Buy me a latte or review the podcast.

    Archives

    February 2025
    January 2025
    December 2024
    October 2024
    September 2024
    June 2024
    May 2024
    March 2024
    January 2024
    November 2023
    October 2023
    September 2023
    August 2023
    May 2023
    April 2023
    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    June 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    May 2016

    Categories

    All

Proudly powered by Weebly
  • Home
  • About
  • 100 Bugs
  • PODCAST
  • BLOG
  • Educators
  • AUTHOR VISITS
  • Contact