Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet (Paperback) (ISBN-13: 9780345505347)

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER - "An impressive, bitter, and sweet debut that explores the age-old conflicts between father and son, the beauty and sadness of what happened to Japanese Americans in the Seattle era during World War II, and the depths and longing of deep-heart love."--Lisa See

"A tender and satisfying novel."--Garth Stein, bestselling author of The Art of Racing in the Rain

In 1986, Henry Lee joins a crowd outside the Panama Hotel, once the gateway to Seattle's Japantown. It has been boarded up for decades, but now the new owner has discovered the belongings of Japanese families who were sent to internment camps during World War II. As the owner displays and unfurls a Japanese parasol, Henry, a Chinese American, remembers a young Japanese American girl from his childhood in the 1940s--Keiko Okabe, with whom he forged a bond of friendship and innocent love that transcended the prejudices of their Old World ancestors. After Keiko and her family were evacuated to the internment camps, she and Henry could only hope that their promise to each other would be kept. Now, forty years later, Henry explores the hotel's basement for the Okabe family's belongings and for a long-lost object whose value he cannot even begin to measure. His search will take him on a journey to revisit the sacrifices he has made for family, for love, for country.

Author: Jamie Ford
ISBN-10: 0345505344
ISBN-13: 9780345505347
Publisher: Ballantine Books
Language: English
Published: 10/06/2009
Pages: 368
Format: Paperback
Weight: 0.60lbs
Size: 7.90h x 5.10w x 0.80d

Accelerated Reader:
Reading Level: 5.7
Point Value: 15
Interest Level: Upper Grade
Quiz #/Name: 145257 / Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet

Award: Grand Canyon Reader Award - Recommended

Review Citation(s):
New York Times Book Review 10/25/2009 pg. 24