kestrellady 's review for:

Himawari House by Harmony Becker

4.5

emotional hopeful lighthearted reflective slow-paced

Plot or Character Driven: Character

Strong character development: Yes

Loveable characters: Yes

Diverse cast of characters: Yes

Flaws of characters a main focus: Complicated

---

This is a very quiet, slice of life graphic novel about the residents of a boarding house in Japan. The two boys are from Japan, but the three girls are from Singapore, South Korea, and the U.S. I absolutely loved the way different languages were handled in this book. They're printed in the original language with the English translation underneath dependent on how much the character understands. It's really fascinating to watch the main character, who was born in Japan and raised in the U.S., start off only catching a few words of Japanese and then being relatively fluent by the end.