She Didn't See Her Family in History Books — So Cynthia Kadohata Wrote Their Story

Cynthia Kadohata is a Newbery Medal and National Book Award-winning author whose work has forever changed the landscape of children's literature. Born in Chicago to Japanese American parents and raised across Georgia, Arkansas, and California, Cynthia draws from real-life experiences of hardship, resilience, and identity.

Her novels — including Kira-Kira, Weedflower, Cracker!, and The Thing About Luck — center voices often overlooked in American history: immigrant families, war survivors, and working-class kids. In this heartfelt interview, Cynthia reflects on growing up without seeing her family's story in textbooks and how she now writes the stories that history forgot. We talk about the emotional roots behind her books, the importance of difficult truths in children's literature, and why, despite today's book bans, young readers have greater access to powerful stories than ever before.

To understand why Cynthia’s work matters so deeply, it’s important to remember how Japanese American history was treated — or ignored — when she was growing up. While most American textbooks today mention Japanese American internment — especially in World War II units — that wasn’t always the case.

For much of the 1950s through the 1980s, many textbooks either skipped over the topic entirely or reduced it to a few sanitized sentences, often framing it as “relocation for protection” rather than acknowledging it as a major civil rights violation. Even now, how much coverage internment receives varies widely by state: schools in places like California and Hawaii teach it more thoroughly, while in other areas it may be little more than a paragraph or an optional side note.

When Cynthia Kadohata was growing up in the 1960s, it’s very likely that her school textbooks barely touched on Japanese American internment — if they mentioned it at all. It wasn’t until later, especially after the Civil Liberties Act of 1988 formally apologized for the injustice, that efforts to include it more seriously began. Even today, internment is often under-discussed compared to other major historical events like the Holocaust or the Civil Rights Movement — making voices like Cynthia’s essential for filling in the silences history books left behind.

If you believe that every story deserves to be told — even the ones history tried to erase — this interview is for you.