Summer’s family is having a run of bad luck. Her parents have had to go to Japan to care
for ailing relatives, leaving Summer and her little brother with their
grandparents. The family’s regular
seasonal job of harvesting wheat for farmers has to be borne by the
grandparents who are in poor health. For Summer, this means
helping her grandmother, whose back is weak and who seems to always find fault
with her granddaughter. Through various hardships, the experience helps Summer come to understand how even a young person can do a lot
if she sets her mind to it.
An interesting setting (seasonal subcontractors operating
combines for wheat farmers in middle America), combined with
a multi-generational immigrant family, provides color and cultural
diversity. So, the whole thing starts off well, but it never engaged me. This is a common issue I've had with Kadohata's books. She writes well, of course,
but the stories don’t go anywhere. There
are lots of ideas developed (Summer’s fear of contracting malaria, her learning
to operate heavy machinery, helping her brother make friends, falling in love,
etc.) that simply get dropped with a one-page wrap-up at the very
end. I suppose the resolutions are all intended to be
implied, but the bare bones of storytelling simply aren’t there.
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