Bianca with Kathleen Burkinshaw on The Last Cherry Blossom

In this episode, Kathleen Burkinshaw talks about her novel for kids and teens, The Last Cherry Blossom. It's a devastatingly beautiful story that reminds us that the people we think don't belong, the people who seem different from ourselves, or the ones we deem 'the enemy,' are not so different from us after all.

Kathleen Burkinshaw is a Japanese American author and the daughter of a Hiroshima survivor. She wrote The Last Cherry Blossom based on her own mother's story of growing up in Hiroshima during World War II. It is through her mother's twelve-year-old eyes that readers witness the atomic bombing of  August 6, 1945. Kathleen lives with her husband and daughter in  Charlotte, North Carolina.

Transcription:

You can read the transcription on The Children's Book Review.

Order copies:

The Last Cherry Blossom on Bookshop.org and Amazon.

Resources:

Learn more about Kathleen Burkinshaw's work at https://kathleenburkinshaw.com/.

Discussion Topics:

• The driving force behind sharing this story of the Hiroshima atomic bomb with children and teens.
• Reflex Sympathetic Dystrophy and how Kathleen's diagnosis led to hearing about her mother's experience living through the bombing.
• The writing process and an excerpt from The Last Cherry Blossom.
• Using The Last Cherry Blossom as a United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs Resource for Teachers and Students.
• School visits with Kathleen Burkinshaw.
• The promise of a sequel.
• Kathleen Burkinshaw's hopes for the impact The Last Cherry Blossom will have on readers.