Little Sister Snow

A delicate portrait of a young Japanese girl on the cusp of womanhood, written with the tender observation of someone who saw both the beauty and the cost of tradition. Yuki Chan spends her childhood in the intimate world of a Japanese garden, where life moves with the seasons and duty shapes every choice. As she grows into adolescence, she faces the weight of arranged marriage and the expectations placed upon women of her station. Then an American boy named Dick Merrit arrives in her village, and for the first time, Yuki encounters a world where love might be a matter of choice rather than circumstance. What unfolds is a quiet revolution, one girl's struggle to reconcile her heart's longing with the obligations that define her. Little writes with luminous detail about the physical world of early twentieth-century Japan, yet her real subject is the invisible cage of expectation that confines even the most vibrant spirits.