• Age: 3 to 7
• Grade: p to 2

A warm, gorgeous exploration of a little girl's experience immigrating to a new country and missing her home and her grandmother, who still lives far away.

Sakura's dad gets a new job in America, so she and her parents make the move from their home in Japan. When she arrives in the States, most of all she misses her grandmother and the cherry blossom trees, under which she and her grandmother used to play and picnic. She wonders how she'll ever feel at home in this new place, with its unfamiliar language and landscape. One day, she meets her neighbor, a boy named Luke, and begins to feel a little more settled. When her grandmother becomes ill, though, her family takes a trip back to Japan. Sakura is sad when she returns to the States and once again reflects on all she misses. Luke does his best to cheer her up -- and tells her about a surprise he knows she'll love, but she'll have to wait till spring. In the meantime, Sakura and Luke's friendship blooms and finally, when spring comes, Luke takes her to see the cherry blossom trees flowering right there in her new neighborhood.

Sakura's Cherry Blossoms captures the beauty of the healing power of friendship through Weston's Japanese poetry-inspired text and Saburi's breathtaking illustrations.

Robert Paul Weston is the author of several internationally award-winning books for children and young adults. His first novel, Zorgamazoo, won the Silver Birch Award, the Audie Award, the California Young Reader Medal, and an E.B. White Read Aloud Honor. His second novel was the hard-boiled fairy tale Dust City, which was a Canadian Library Association Young Adult Honour Book and was shortlisted for both the Red Maple Award and the Edgar Allan Poe Award for Best Young Adult Mystery. His recent novel, The Creature Department, is shortlisted for the Silver Birch Award.

Robert Paul Weston's profile page

Misa Saburi's profile page

• Nominated, Sakura Medal

SELECTION - Evanston Public Library 101 Great Books for Kids 2018
PRAISE FOR Sakura's Cherry Blossoms:

"[A] heartwarming story of the ephemeral, the eternal nature of love, friendship, cherry blossoms, and stars." --starred review, Booklist
"Weston combines a look at Japanese customs, a meditation on loss, and observations on adjusting to a new country in this wistful, low-key tale." --Publishers Weekly
"Weston addresses the difficulty of moving to a new country and the loss of a loved one with warmth and compassion." --Kirkus