{"id":201,"date":"2011-12-07T15:00:00","date_gmt":"2011-12-07T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=201"},"modified":"2019-03-10T16:24:20","modified_gmt":"2019-03-10T21:24:20","slug":"hannahs-winter-by-kierin-meehan-fiction-japanese-ghosts-ancient-puzzle-mysteries","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=201","title":{"rendered":"Hannah’s Winter, by Kierin Meehan (fiction) – Japanese ghosts, ancient puzzle mysteries"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"book<\/a>Winter in Japan.
\nHot Australia far away.
\nGhosts throwing donuts?<\/div>\n

A mystery in the snow-shrouded town of Kanazawa<\/a> is not what Hannah expected when she came to Japan. High school<\/a> for her, horticultural field study<\/a> for her mum, and then a ghost who tosses donuts and writes on Hannah’s mirror with sunscreen??<\/p>\n

The town’s winter festivals<\/a> and historic sites<\/a> draw Hannah and her new Japanese friends Miki and Hiro further and further into a ancient mystery.<\/p>\n

Dire visions foretold by three old women and dragons<\/a> hidden in plain sight – could they be relevant to the task that “the ocean boy” begs them to accomplish? Dive into the puzzles of Hannah’s winter in Japan at your local library<\/a> or independent bookstore<\/a>.
\n**kmm<\/p>\n

Book info<\/b>: Hannah’s Winter \/ Kierin Meehan. Kane Miller, 2009. [author’s website<\/a>] [publisher site<\/a>] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher.<\/p>\n

Recommendation<\/b>: Going to school in Japan instead of starting high school in Australia with her friends worries Hannah; her height and auburn hair will really make her stand out. But a mysterious message from the past sends her exploring her new city quickly.<\/p>\n

Her host-father translates the ancient kanji on the fragile paper \u2013 it\u2019s a puzzle, asking the finder to \u201chelp the ocean boy\u201d by following the cryptic instructions. After \u201cthe first snowfall,\u201d Hannah, host-sister Miki, and neighbor Hiro travel to \u201cthe temple of secrets\u201d and see a vision from the past!<\/p>\n

A boisterous ghost in the house, donuts tossed in the air, messages on her mirror, that recurring dream of the tunnel, a house of cards\u2026 Hannah finds they\u2019re all pieces of the puzzle (except the donuts). A suit of samurai armor is delivered to Miki\u2019s shop and puffs out incense with no fire. Japanese school is interesting, but waiting until time to \u201cgo at sunrise to wake the dragon\u201d is hard.<\/p>\n

Why has the \u201cocean boy\u201d chosen Hannah to help him finish his task from the past? Is the man suddenly appearing all over their neighborhood \u201cthe one who does not want the boy to go\u201d? And why has the samurai armor\u2019s incense smoke changed from blue to yellow?<\/p>\n

You\u2019ll get peeks into modern Japanese culture as well as older folktales and traditions as you visit Kanazawa\u2019s festivals and parks with Hannah, Miki, and Hiro to solve the mystery before it\u2019s too late for \u201cthe ocean boy.\u201d(One of 5,000 books recommended on www.abookandahug.com<\/a>)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Winter in Japan. Hot Australia far away. Ghosts throwing donuts? A mystery in the snow-shrouded town of Kanazawa is not what Hannah expected when she came to Japan. High school for her, horticultural field study for her mum, and then a ghost who tosses donuts and writes on Hannah’s mirror with sunscreen?? The town’s winter […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[69,77,19,50,30,51],"tags":[22,20,44,103,49,31,15,35,119,6],"class_list":["post-201","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-adventure","category-fantasy","category-fiction","category-historical","category-legends","category-mystery","tag-behavior","tag-conflict","tag-friendship","tag-japan","tag-memories","tag-non-us-author","tag-relationships","tag-surprises","tag-time-travel","tag-travel"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=201"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10429,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/201\/revisions\/10429"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=201"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=201"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=201"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}