Nobody Knows
- Publisher
- Groundwood Books Ltd
- Initial publish date
- Jul 2012
- Category
- Siblings, Media Tie-In, Homelessness & Poverty
-
eBook
- ISBN
- 9781554983056
- Publish Date
- Jul 2012
- List Price
- $9.95
-
Paperback / softback
- ISBN
- 9781554981182
- Publish Date
- Aug 2012
- List Price
- $9.95
-
Hardback
- ISBN
- 9781554981403
- Publish Date
- Aug 2012
- List Price
- $16.95
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Where to buy it
Recommended Age, Grade, and Reading Levels
- Age: 0
- Grade: p to 12
- Reading age: 10 to 18
Description
It's autumn in Tokyo, and twelve-year-old Akira and his younger siblings, Kyoko, Shige and little Yuki, have just moved into a new apartment with their mother. Akira hopes it's a new start for all of them, even though the little ones are not allowed to leave the apartment or make any noise, since the landlord doesn't permit young children in the building. But their mother soon begins to spend more and more time away from the apartment, and then one morning Akira finds an envelope of money and a note. She has gone away with her new boyfriend for a while.
Akira bravely shoulders the responsibility for the family. He shops and cooks and pays the bills, while Kyoko does the laundry. The children spend their time watching TV, drawing and playing games, wishing they could go to school and have friends like everyone else. Then one morning their mother breezes in with gifts for everyone, but she is soon gone again.
Months pass, until one spring day Akira decides they have been prisoners in the apartment long enough. For a brief time the children bask in their freedom. They shop, explore, plant a little balcony garden, have the playground to themselves. Even when the bank account is empty and the utilities are turned off and the children become increasingly ill-kempt, it seems that they have been hiding for nothing. In the bustling big city, nobody notices them. It's as if nobody knows.
But by August the city is sweltering, and the children are too malnourished and exhausted even to go out. Akira is afraid to contact child welfare, remembering the last time the authorities intervened, and the family was split up. Eventually even he can't hold it together any more, and then one day tragedy strikes
Based on the award-winning film by Kore-eda Hirokazu, this is a powerfully moving novel about four children who become invisible to almost everyone in their community and manage -- for a time -- to survive on their own.
About the author
SHELLEY TANAKA is an award-winning author, translator and editor. She has written more than twenty books for children and young adults, winning the Orbis Pictus Award, the Mr. Christie’s Book Award, the Science in Society Book Award and the Information Book Award, and she has twice been nominated for the Deutsche Jugendliteraturpreis. Other honors include Texas Blue Bonnet runner-up, School Library Journal Best Books, ALA Notables and IRA Young Adults’ Choice. Her translation of Michel Noel’s Good for Nothing won the Geoffrey Bilson Award for Historical Fiction for Young People and was on the IBBY Honor List (Commended). Shelley teaches at Vermont College of Fine Arts, in the MFA Program in Writing for Children and Young Adults. She lives in Kingston, Ontario.
Editorial Reviews
Well-chosen black-and-white photographic stills from the film deepen the novel's breathtaking realism.
The Horn Book
That blindness is the shocking part of the story, and with lucid, simple prose and occasional black-and-white photos from the film, this novel will raise universal questions: what could be happening on your street?
Booklist
Librarian Reviews
Nobody Knows
based on the film by Hirokazu Kore-edaEverything seems to be going well for the Fukushima family when they move into a bigger apartment in a nice neighbourhood in Tokyo. Mother is certainly pleased, but warns 10-year-old Kyoko, eight-year-old Shigeru and four-year-old Yuki that they can’t go out — not even onto the balcony — and they have to be very quiet because the landlord does not allow children. And where would the children go anyway? Mother doesn’t let them go to school.
Twelve-year-old Akira is concerned from the start. Though he’s used to being in charge — he does the shopping and cooking and looks after his siblings while his mother works — he can tell that something is not right. Mother is coming home later and later, sometimes smelling of alcohol, and finally confesses to Akira that she’s in love. One day she disappears, leaving only an envelope of money and a note telling him to look after the others.
During the month that she’s gone, Akira manages — until mother returns, presents in hand. But right away she leaves again and this time she doesn’t return. Months pass and, eventually, the money runs out. But Akira and his siblings are resilient and imaginative and they cope. Surprisingly, nobody notices what’s happening to them — not even when tragedy strikes.
Based on Kore-eda’s award-winning adult film, Nobody Knows has become, in the hands of a master storyteller, an amazing children’s book because Tanaka always tells the story from the point of view of her young characters. In 144 pages of spare but often lyrical prose, her narrative packs a powerful punch as she weaves us into the daily lives of her characters — never sentimentalizing their story. Despite the fact that they’ve been abandoned by their mother (whose own tragic story is hinted at), Tanaka never portrays them as helpless victims — her characters are intrepid survivors who somehow will find a way to carry on.
This is not an easy novel, but it is one that could be used to talk not only about issues around child neglect, abuse or abandonment, but also about homelessness, discrimination and poverty. Nobody knows because nobody wants to know is the message that Tanaka leaves her readers. Now we, her readers, know. Are we brave enough, Tanaka seems to be asking, to do something about it?
Source: The Canadian Children's Bookcentre. Fall 2012. Volume 35 No. 4.
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