The Lost Ryu by Emi Watanabe Cohen

Kohei sees his mother and grandfather struggling and wishes he could help, but there doesn't seem to be anything he can do. He clings to the memory of seeing a truly big ryu, or dragon, as a child, before the end of the war and his father's death. Now the only ryu are the small ones that can perch on a shoulder. His mother is tired and refuses to talk about anything and his grandfather gets drunk and angry more and more frequently.

When a new family moves in with a daughter Kohei's age, Isolde, who is half Japanese and half Jewish, Kohei starts out on a bad footing with her due to his disappointment that her ryu is not the massive Western dragon of his childhood memory. When his grandfather is sick, he decides to follow his childhood dream and find a full-size ryu that will bring hope and happiness back to Ojiisan.

This is beautifully written and the story is all the more powerful for the things it doesn't spell out and the threads of regret and loss that trail through the story. It's set in the years after World War II and Kohei and Isolde's families are still suffering from their traumatic pasts. Isolde's parents survived the camps in Europe and America, but her grandparents did not; Kohei knows there are secrets about his father's death and his family's past that are never spoken of and he is an outcast at school, but all his mother will ever say is "shikata ga nai" everything is fine, even when he knows it's not true.

Will kids pick this up? Honestly, I don't see this appealing to most young readers. It's not a fantasy - the dragons are peripheral to the story and almost metaphorical, blends of mythology and pets. It's achingly realistic, exploring the suffering and aftermath of war and the difficult choices people make, as well as how the effects are passed down to the next generation. Isolde struggles to reconcile her two different heritages while Kohei is both frustrated and devastated by the loss of his past. In the end, there are no easy answers; Kohei gets some answers and Isolde finds a measure of peace, but they cannot repair or erase the damage their families have suffered.

Verdict: I can see this being assigned in school, or appealing to kids who like serious, realistic fiction that explores emotion and history, but it's not a mainstream, popular title. It a good choice for larger collections and I'm glad it's available in my consortium, although I probably will not purchase it for my own collection.

ISBN: 9781646141326; Published June 2022 by Levine Querido; Borrowed from another library in my consortium