Kira-Kira

Each year the American Library Association gives the Newbery Medal "to the author of the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children." Too often award-winners like this one are the result -- books that will be loved by the adults who make the purchasing decisions, especially teachers and librarians, who will cram them down the throats of kids and then bemoan a generation of children who hate to read.

Even by the questionable criteria of the Newbery this is an odd choice. It's a perfectly decent book with some lyrical writing, a bit of charm, a bit of humor, and an interesting setting, but nothing special. It's slow, the characters are not especially compelling, and, given its sad theme of the death of a child, emotionally uninvolving. There's nothing particularly wrong with it, but "the most distinguished contribution to American literature for children" it is not.