Cynthia Kadohata

"My mother had four daughters by four different men." There's only one way Shelby and her sisters can describe their mother: She's a sexpot. Helen Kimura collects men (and loans, spending money, and gifts of all kinds) from all over the country. Sure, she's not your typical role model, but she's...

Y'Tin is brave. No one in his village denies that—his mother may wish that he’d spend more time on school work than on elephant training, but still she knows that it takes a great deal of courage and calm to deal with elephants the way that Y'Tin does. He is almost the best trainer in the...

From Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata comes a brilliantly realized sports novel about a hockey player who must discover who he is without the sport that defines him....

A kid who considers himself an epic fail discovers the transformative power of love when he deals with adoption in this novel from Cynthia Kadohata, winner of the Newbery Medal (Kira-Kira) and the National Book Award (The Thing About Luck). Eleven-year-old Jaden is adopted, and he knows he’s...

There is bad luck, good luck, and making your own luck—which is exactly what Summer must do to save her family in this winner of the National Book Award by Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata. Summer knows that kouun means “good luck” in Japanese, and this year her family has none of it...

Twelve-year-old Sumiko feels her life has been made up of two parts: before Pearl Harbor and after it. The good part and the bad part. Raised on a flower farm in California, Sumiko is used to being the only Japanese girl in her class. Even when the other kids tease her, she always has had her...

Cracker is one of the United States Army’s most valuable weapons: a German shepherd trained to sniff out bombs, traps, and the enemy. The fate of entire platoons rests on her keen sense of smell. She’s a Big Deal, and she likes it that way. Sometimes Cracker remembers when she was younger...

From Newbery Medalist and National Book Award–winning author Cynthia Kadohata comes a “funny, lively” (Horn Book Magazine), and heartwarming story about a girl and her ever-growing pig, Saucy—perfect for fans of The One and Only Ivan and Flora & Ulysses! Being a quadruplet can make it...

Five starred reviews! “Another gift from Kadohata to her readers.” —Booklist (starred review) A Japanese American family, reeling from their ill treatment in the Japanese imprisonment camps, gives up their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation wreaked...

A teen boy thinks his vaping habit is harmless until it becomes a crippling addiction of nightmarish dimensions in this “vivid” (School Library Journal) young adult novel from Newbery and National Book Award winner Cynthia Kadohata. So, stuff has, like, a beginning and an end. And you...