Short-listed for the 2012 Pacific Northwest Young Readers Choice Award and for the 2011 Hackmatack Children’s Choice Award (When the Cherry Blossoms Fell) This special bundle contains all of Jennifer Maruno’s Cherry Blossom novels about the internment of Japanese-Canadians, viewed through the eyes of nine-year-old Michiko Minagawa. Includes: When the Cherry Blossoms Fell Nine-year-old Michiko bids her father goodbye. She doesn’t know the government has ordered all Japanese-born men out of the province. Ten days later, her family joins hundreds of Japanese-Canadians on a train to the interior of B.C. She must face local prejudice, the worst winter in forty years, and her first Christmas without her father. Cherry Blossom Winter After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, ten-year-old Michiko’s family’s possessions are confiscated and they are sent to a small community. After a former Asahi baseball star becomes her new teacher, life gets better. Baseball fever hits town, and when Michiko challenges the adults to a game with her class, the whole town turns out. Cherry Blossom Baseball — NEW! After her family is forced to move by Canada’s racist wartime policies, Michiko is the only Japanese kid at school. One nice thing is that she’s a hit at the local baseball tryouts. There’s just one problem: everyone thinks she’s a boy. What is she to do when they find her out — do as she’s told and quit, or pitch like never before? “Maruno brings to life this tragic part of Canadian history while showing that, among the poverty and loss experienced by the internees, strong communities were still able to grow.” — Quill & Quire

Michiko Minagawa's father is exiled and she and her family must move to a desolate internment camp in the middle of British Columbia, where she must deal with the prejudices of her schoolmates.

A cherry tree growing from the top of the wicked landlord's head is the beginning of his misfortunes and a better life for the poor villagers.

Each year, the flowering of cherry blossoms marks the beginning of spring. But if it weren’t for the pioneering work of an English eccentric, Collingwood “Cherry” Ingram, Japan’s beloved cherry blossoms could have gone extinct. Ingram first fell in love with the sakura, or cherry tree, when he visited Japan on his honeymoon in 1907 and was so taken with the plant that he brought back hundreds of cuttings with him to England. Years later, upon learning that the Great White Cherry had virtually disappeared from Japan, he buried a living cutting from his own collection in a potato and repatriated it via the Trans-Siberian Express. In the years that followed, Ingram sent more than 100 varieties of cherry tree to new homes around the globe. As much a history of the cherry blossom in Japan as it is the story of one remarkable man, The Sakura Obsession follows the flower from its significance as a symbol of the imperial court, through the dark days of the Second World War, and up to the present-day worldwide fascination with this iconic blossom.

Looks at the life cycle of a cherry tree, the history behind the gift of the Japanese cherry trees to our nation's capital, and the association of cherry trees and spring.

The most significant of the more than 175 varieties of Japanese ornamental trees featured, along with a discussion of Japanese garden design, and cultivation tips for home gardeners.

Following the seventieth anniversary of the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, this is a new, very personal story to join Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes. Yuriko was happy growing up in Hiroshima when it was just her and Papa. But her aunt Kimiko and her cousin Genji are living with them now, and the family is only getting bigger with talk of a double marriage! And while things are changing at home, the world beyond their doors is even more unpredictable. World War II is coming to an end, and since the Japanese newspapers don’t report lost battles, the Japanese people are not entirely certain of where Japan stands. Yuriko is used to the sirens and the air-raid drills, but things start to feel more real when the neighbors who have left to fight stop coming home. When the bombs hit Hiroshima, it’s through Yuriko’s twelve-year-old eyes that we witness the devastation and horror. This is a story that offers young readers insight into how children lived during the war, while also introducing them to Japanese culture. Based loosely on author Kathleen Burkinshaw’s mother’s firsthand experience surviving the atomic bombing of Hiroshima, The Last Cherry Blossom hopes to warn readers of the immense damage nuclear war can bring, while reminding them that the “enemy” in any war is often not so different from ourselves.