"I loved that word! When I grew older, I used kira-kira to describe everything I liked: the beautiful blue sky, puppies, kittens, butterflies, colored Kleenex. My mother said we were misusing the word; you could not call a Kleenex kira-kira. She was dismayed over how un-Japanese we were..." Chapter 1, pgs. 1-2

"I did not see why we had to move to a southern state where my father said you could not understand a word people say because of their southern accents. I did not see why we had to leave our house for a small apartment." Chapter 2, pgs. 20-21

"Uncle Katsuhisa said that it might seem sad to kill them (chickens), but eventually, we would learn to be kind of like farm kids—farm kids understood the meaning of death. They understood how death was part of life." Chapter 3, pg. 39

"Lynn's face darkened. That was kind of...