Jet Black and the Ninja Wind
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- £5.49
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- £5.49
Publisher Description
**Winner of the 2013-2014 Asian/Pacific American Award for Young Adult Literature**
**2015 Sakura Medal Nominee**
**Shortlisted for the 2014 SCBWI Crystal Kite Award**
**Nominated for the Cybils Young Adult Bloggers Literary Award**
Seventeen-year-old Jet Black is a ninja. There's only one problem--she doesn't know it.
Jet has never lived a so-called normal life. Raised by her single Japanese mother on a Navajo reservation in the Southwest, Jet's life was a constant litany of mysterious physical and mental training. For as long as Jet can remember, every Saturday night she and her mother played "the game" on the local mountain. But this time, Jet is fighting for her life. And at the end of the night, her mother dies and Jet finds herself an orphan--and in mortal danger.
Fulfilling her mother's dying wish, Jet flies to Japan to live with her grandfather, where she discovers she is the only one who can protect a family treasure hidden in her ancestral land. She's terrified, but if Jet won't fight to protect her world, who will? Stalked by bounty hunters and desperately attracted with the man who's been sent to kill her, Jet must be strong enough to protect the treasure, preserve an ancient culture and save a sacred mountain from destruction.
In Jet Black and the Ninja Wind, multiple award-winning author, poet and translator team Leza Lowitz and Shogo Oketani make their first foray into young adult fiction with a compulsively readable tale whose teenage heroine must discover if she can put the blade above the heart--or die trying.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this meticulously researched adventure, the husband-and-wife team of Oketani and Lowitz evoke the atmosphere and richness of Japanese culture and mythology, delving into the lore of the ninja. When 17-year-old Jet Black's mother dies, Jet travels to the ancestral home she's never known to meet unfamiliar kin and uncover her own mysterious heritage. She soon learns that a powerful organization is after her, certain that she holds the key to a long-hidden treasure of immense value. As Jet embraces her mystic skills as a rare female ninja, she tries to uncover the secret her family has held safe for centuries, while unraveling her complicated feelings toward Takumi, the young man in charge of hunting her down. The physical descriptions are lush, the action sequences almost cinematic, and the details are steeped in authenticity. However, there's a certain academic stiffness to the writing that, when combined with certain pacing problems (the amount of detail the authors attempt to include can impede the story's momentum), detracts from the overall sense of wonder. Ages 12 up.
