Cynthia Kadohata,
Outside Beauty
Atheneum Books for Young Readers/ Simon and Schuster, 2008.

ages 12 +

In Outside Beauty, Newbery Award winner Cynthia Kadohata (for Kira-Kira) brings an edgy situation into clear and endearing focus. Her Chicago-based “sexpot” mom, four daughters, and their four fathers of different ethnicities become such heartwarming characters that readers willingly suspend disbelief in Kadohata’s improbable plot.

Helen Kimura, a Japanese beauty in her mid-30’s, scrabbles together a life for her girls, aged 6 to 16, via the generosity and jewelry bestowed on her by a never-ending series of admirers. The girls are so close-knit that 13-year-old narrator Shelby, clearly a writer-in-the-making, says she loves her sisters even more than she loves their spunky, unconventional mom. The siblings lobby Helen to marry carpenter Larry, the dad in California, but Helen is holding out for a wealthier man.

When Helen has a bad car accident and the girls’ fathers take them in, Shelby finds herself in Arkansas with her Japanese dad, a gum-selling, purple-plaid-pants-wearing guy of few words who wins her heart with his simple honesty (and a pet goat doesn’t hurt). However, 6-year-old Maddie isn’t so lucky. Under the influence of a father who spanks her and censors her letters to her sisters, she seems to be turning into a robot. Shelby‘s attempts to rescue Maddie are unsuccessful.

When a serious staph infection threatens their mom’s life, the girls and their fathers have an odd reunion in Chicago. The sisters have changed in their month apart, and their dads are goofily different: “a low-level hoodlum, a gum manufacturer, a he-man nature guy, and an uptight history teacher, all joined by my mother’s unpredictable taste.” To save Maddie, the sisters bravely engineer an escape worthy of their audacious mom.

In time, despite how her injuries challenge her beauty, Helen recuperates. While she spends Christmas in Paris with her latest beau (her doctor), the girls happily visit Arkansas, where Shelby reflects on her mom’s values. “The line between loneliness and happiness seemed slender to me…You were taking a chance by letting someone make you happy or sad. My mother had never wanted to take that chance, for whatever reason.” Then, this upbeat young intellect concludes with her favorite refrain: “Those were some pretty big thoughts I had, if I say so myself.”

Kadohata’s generous-spirited testament to sisterhood will provide much food for thought and some vicarious thrills for young teenagers.

Charlotte Richardson
September 2008