minheepeaches 's review for:

Himawari House by Harmony Becker

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a wonderful, beautifully written and illustrated book. this is a labor of love. i enjoyed getting to know all of the characters of the himawari house, especially our main trio. the story is framed by nao’s year abroad in japan, as she figures out her place in japan after moving to the US as a child. i related the most to nao in her diasporic struggles and attempts to figure out who she is (japanese? american? neither? both? something entirely different?) tina and hyejung are great characters who go through their own bouts with family, purpose, and outsiderness in a foreign country. 

i gotta give creds to the author for juggling all of the different languages in this book. oftentimes, a character’s speech bubble will have, for ex, spoken japanese but translated english underneath it. sometimes, japanese words are replaced with squiggles to show a character’s language gap. it captures the struggles of learning a new language and actually using it and trying to imply meaning and figure things out. sometimes it works and sometimes it doesn’t. the inclusion of accents in spoken english was also a plus, showing us that english has all different varieties. it is an incredible feat to include so many variants of language in written and drawn form. 

i mean. if you can’t tell, i’m a big fan. this book was just so sweet, touching, and emotional, and was truly carried by the friendships of the house. 10/10