May 19, 2013
Holly Thompson Book Birthday
SWET member Holly Thompson celebrated the book birthday of her new YA novel, The Language Inside, on May 14, 2013. This is Thompson's fourth book of fiction, following another young adult novel in verse: Orchards (2012), winner of the APALA Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature.
The Language Inside is about Emma Karas, raised in Japan, the country she calls home. But when her mother is diagnosed with breast cancer, Emma’s family moves to a town outside Lowell, Massachusetts to stay with her grandmother while her mom undergoes treatment. Emma feels out of place in the U.S., begins to have migraines, and longs to be back in Japan. At her grandmother’s urging, she volunteers in a long-term care center to help Zena, a patient with locked-in syndrome, write down her poems. There, Emma meets Samnang, another volunteer, who assists elderly Cambodian refugees. Weekly visits to the care center, Zena’s poems, dance, and noodle soup bring Emma and Samnang closer, until Emma must make a painful choice: stay in Massachusetts, or return early to Japan.
The Kirkus Review said, "As Emma volunteers, helping a physically disabled adult write poetry, and meets a multigenerational Cambodian community with Khmer Rouge history, Thompson nimbly braids political tragedy, natural disaster, PTSD, connections among families, and a cautious, quiet romance into an elegant whole." A young reader from Ohio wrote in a review on her blog, Peace Love Books: "To read this book, you definitely have to be open minded about reading a novel in verse and prepared for an emotional, serious story. Once you start it, though, you'll be pulled into to a whirlwind of emotions and you won't want to put it down."
Thompson's adult novel Ash (2001, Stone Bridge Press) and the picture book The Wakame Gatherers (2007, Shen’s Books) have also been highly praised. Raised in New England but a longtime resident of Japan, her fiction often focuses on Japan and biculturalism in its many manifestations. She recently edited Tomo: Friendship Through Fiction—An Anthology of Japan Teen Stories (2012, Stone Bridge Press), a collection of thirty-six Japan-related YA stories, including ten in translation. The book continues to benefit teens in the earthquake and tsunami affected areas of Tohoku, Japan. Thompson writes poetry and fiction for children and adults, serves as regional advisor for the Japan chapter of the Society of Children’s Book Writers and Illustrators, and teaches creative and academic writing at Yokohama City University.
Thompson's first novel, Ash, is the story of Caitlin Ober, who is back in Japan after 15 years, teaching English in Kyushu. As a little girl in Kyoto, Caitlin has her life changed by a tragic accident that drove her and her family back to America. Now guilt obscures her path, just as ashfall from a nearby volcano covers Kagoshima in dust. In a garden, Caitlin meets a teenage half-Japanese girl, Naomi, who may be someone Caitlin can save this time around. Together the two travel to Kyoto during the summertime O-Bon festival, when the dead return and are remembered. Amid bonfires, temple grounds, and ghostly memories, Caitlin bravely embraces her future. Ash is a bittersweet novel of redemptive beauty, of startling images and alluring details.
You can follow Thompson on Twitter, and on her Facebook Author Page. She is also a Goodreads Author, where SWET Member Suzanne Kamata reviews The Language Inside.
The Language Inside is available from Amazon Japan in hardcover and Kindle editions and from Amazon USA in hardcover and Kindle editions as well.