Flying the Dragon

Flying the Dragon

By Natalie Dias Lorenzi

Lorenzi, Natalie Dias. Flying the dragon. Watertown, Mass.: Charlesbridge, 2012. 

Skye is a young Japanese American girl who loves to play soccer.  She is upset when she finds out she made the All-Star team but cannot play due to Japanese classes she must take.  She has family moving to Washington, DC from Japan.  She is expected to show her cousin Hiroshi around.  

Hiroshi is Skye's Japanese cousin.  He has been waiting a long time to fight in the rokkaku kite fighting contest held every year in Japan.  He spent a long time building his kite with his grandfather.  He is upset when he learns he is going to move to America and miss the contest that his family has won every year for generations.  Grandfather needs treatment he can only receive in America.  

Through kite flying, Hiroshi and Skye start to get along with each other, thanks to Grandfather.  When they discover there will be a rokkaku  in Washington DC, they work diligently to finish the kite for the fight with the hope that Grandfather will hang on long enough to see the kite fight.  

Lorenzi's story is a moving tale of adapting to change and how it affects us all.  Each chapter moves back and forth between Skye's point of view and Hiroshi's point of view.  Each child has his or her own feelings about what is important and how that affects them at school and at home. Through the story, the cultural differences come alive.  

"A quiet, beautifully moving portrayal of a multicultural family." --Kirkus Reviews, starred review

"Debut novelist Lorenzi offers an emphathetic and quietly affecting fish-out-of-water story, with both children struggling with disappointments, prejudice, language difficulties, and being caught between cultures."  

-- Publisher's Weekly