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CompleteMartialArts.com - Of Nightingales That Weep


List Price: $6.99
Our Price: $6.99
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Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
Average Customer Rating: Average rating of 4.0/5Average rating of 4.0/5Average rating of 4.0/5Average rating of 4.0/5Average rating of 4.0/5

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Binding: Paperback
EAN: 9780064402828
ISBN: 0064402827
Label: HarperTrophy
Manufacturer: HarperTrophy
Number Of Items: 1
Number Of Pages: 192
Publication Date: 1989-02-15
Publisher: HarperTrophy
Reading Level: Young Adult
Release Date: 1989-02-15
Studio: HarperTrophy

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Editorial Reviews:

The daughter of a samurai never weeps. But Takiko, whose warrior father was killed in battle, finds this a hard rule, especially when her mother remarries a strange and ugly country potter. To get away from her miserable home, Takiko eagerly accepts a position at the imperial Japanese court. There, her beauty and nightingale voice captivate the handsome young warrior, Hideo -- who also turns out to be an enemy spy. As war breaks out, Takiko flees the court and is forced to choose between loyalty to her people and her love for Hideo. She painfully learns that whatever choice she makes, she cannot run away from her samurai honor.




Spotlight customer reviews:

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: A book I loved as a young girl
Comment: I have to disagree with reviewers who advised against giving Of Nightingales That Weep by Katherine Paterson to kids. Depending on the maturity level of the child in question this may be just the book for a young person entering adolescence since it deals with the pain of change (both mental and physical) as well as the conflict between outer appearance and inner truth. These issues I recall being the fundamental struggles of adolescence and one reason I think this book should be offered to kids (teens specifically).

I read this book when I was 13 years old and it blew me away. Some parts were too much - but I skipped passages that were too painful for me to read in detail or that I found boring.

What I want adults reading this review to take away is that this book was important to me as a child (I kept coming back to it which I think is telling) and I hope that they will give this book a chance with the young people in their charge. Kids need to learn about handling pain and grief and seeing through social illusion to the heart of things. This isn't a lesson that should wait for adulthood.

Of course if you "assign" the book it won't go over well. I posit that this book would work best as a personal choice book since if a kid isn't ready for it they will probably hate it. It definitely is NOT a happy book and the universe created therein is not a just one.


Customer Rating: Average rating of 2/5Average rating of 2/5Average rating of 2/5Average rating of 2/5Average rating of 2/5
Summary: Not the best
Comment: I have read many of Katherine Paterson's works but this book is by far the worse of her works. We had to read it in my English class.

I believe that there were to many Japanese names that were hard to pronounce. The ending disgusted every one of my classmates, including me. The plot was okay, but Takiko is too selfish, even when she is almost a woman. Don't waste your time; this book is not worth reading.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: Great but complicated book.
Comment: I loved this book as a child and still enjoyed when I reread it as an adult. This is a great story about a girl who grows into a women. It does contain some adult themes however when I was a child and my mother read it to me I did not fully understand these parts. A lot of people do die in this book and it is not light hearted. As a child I didn't understand that the ending was somewhat of a happy one. This is a story of the destruction of lives and how they come back together and how happiness does not always come in the form you expect.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5Average rating of 5/5
Summary: Adult transformation to truth and love
Comment: This is not a story for children, but a story of maturation for adults. Who isn't selfish as a child? But life has a way of teaching that true beauty is different from perfection, that life is complicated, and to find love one must look at reality rather than fantasy. What we think we know as a child is not the truth we discover during a life of suffering.

I read this story as a 50 yr.+ woman and consider it to be one of the most truthful beautiful stories I have ever read.

Customer Rating: Average rating of 1/5Average rating of 1/5Average rating of 1/5Average rating of 1/5Average rating of 1/5
Summary: Don't waste your time...
Comment: "Of Nightingales That Weep" was a book that I read purely because I had to, at school. The plot is weak and at times confusing. The main character is so selfish that it's not even funny, and her selfishness, unlike some bad traits of characters, doesn't help the plot. In the end, she has a baby with her stepfather, which disgusted most of the kids in my English class.

If you really want to read something about Japan, try a piece from Japan. It is much more accurate and the characters are most likely not selfish.


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