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Keep It Together, Keiko Carter, by Debbi Michiko Florence, follows the story of seventh-grader Keiko and her two friends as they navigate changes in family, friends, school, and romance.

What I liked:

• When I was Keiko’s age, I hardly read any contemporary fiction. I was deep in my SFF phase and spent hours buried in books by Robert Jordan and Michael Crichton. The few contemporary novels I recall reading were mostly for school (which probably did not help me develop any appreciation for the genre). I never felt any connection to those books. I remember reading a few of Yoshiko Uchida’s books, which I found in the school library, as well as leafing through Shizuko’s Daughter, by Kyoko Mori, but there was too large a gap between the lives of these characters and my own experiences. Although Keiko’s circumstances are somewhat different from my own, I wonder if having books like Keep It Together, Keiko Carter in middle school would have helped me understand why predominantly white contemporary children’s fiction failed to resonate with me. I’m happy for today’s kids, who have a vast selection of books by authors of color to choose from, including books set in the present day.

What I learned:

• I rarely read contemporary children’s fiction (yes, even now), so this may not be specific to Keep It Together, Keiko Carter, but I was fascinated by the plot structure. As always, I read the jacket copy before starting the book, and I could not tell at all where the story was going to go, other than that Keiko was likely to undergo some personal development. This is not a ‘bad’ thing, but rather encouraged me to pay close attention to the various story threads, as I tried to guess what Florence wanted the reader to think and feel.

Questions I had:

• How did fellow nikkei readers feel about this book? Specifically, how did nikkei readers close in age to Keiko and her friends feel about this book?
• How does Florence situate her work in the existing body of nikkei, especially JA, literature? As a community, how might we see the concept of ‘nikkei literature’ evolve as more nikkei writers venture beyond works centered on our histories?

Follow-up:

• I already ordered Just Be Cool, Jenna Sakai, so keep your eyes open for a future post!