Book Review of When Cherry Blossoms Fall
The Children’s Book Review
When Cherry Blossoms Fall
Written by Katrina Goldsaito
Illustrated by Yas Imamura
Ages: 4+ | 32 Pages
Publisher: Little, Brown Books for Young Readers / Alvina Ling Books (2026) | ISBN: 978-0-316-28112-6
What to Expect: Intergenerational love, grief, impermanence, Japanese culture, mono no aware, nature, cherry blossoms, and haiku.
A tender intergenerational picture book about a young girl who learns the Japanese concept of mono no aware—the bittersweet awareness of impermanence—through springtime cherry blossoms.
Little Yuna and her great-grandmother (hībāchan) wait together for the family cherry tree to bloom, savoring each slow unfurling petal. But cherry blossoms don’t linger, and neither do the people we love most. When both the petals and her great-grandmother are gone, Yuna begins to understand the phrase her hībāchan whispered beneath the branches—mono no aware—and how beauty and sorrow so often bloom from the same stem.
Katrina Goldsaito’s prose is quiet, patient, and deeply felt, and includes Japanese words woven naturally throughout the text, grounding the story in cultural specificity without ever feeling like a vocabulary lesson. Rather than explaining mono no aware outright, Goldsaito lets the concept settle into readers, as it does into Yuna. Gradually, through observation and loss, the understanding arrives almost of its own accord. A thoughtful author’s note included after the story deepens the meaning of mono no aware and introduces young readers to haiku.
Yas Imamura’s gouache and watercolor illustrations are nothing short of wonderful—soft, warm, careful, and caring—carrying the same kind and unhurried sensibility as the text. She takes readers artfully through the seasons with her palette of blush pinks, soft greens, and gentle creams, increasing with each page turn, bringing spring to life until it breathes across the pages, and her compositions give Yuna and her hībāchan the spaciousness their quiet moments deserve. Imamura captures something ineffable: a deliberate, tender attentiveness that lingers long after the final page. Be sure to take a peek under the dust cover and admire the endpapers, infused with a quiet reverence.
There’s a paradox at the heart of this book—that the blossoms become more beautiful because we know they’ll be gone soon—and Goldsaito and Imamura trust their young readers to sit with that truth rather than softening it, and hopefully remind us to cherish our family members while we have them, too.
When Cherry Blossoms Fall is a rare picture book that holds loss and beauty in the same gentle hand—it’s sure to resonate most with families navigating grief and anyone who loves books that celebrate intergenerational bonds and cultural heritage. Who knew a book about grief could feel so sweet?
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About the Author
Katrina Goldsaito finds mono no aware in the ever-changing sky above the fields of western Massachusetts and in her ever-changing children. She is the author of the award-winning The Sound of Silence, translated into seven languages, and named a Book of the Year by NPR and many others. ReachYou, her AR collaboration with Jonah Goldsaito, connects participants with their grief—mundane or profound —and premiered at the Tribeca Festival.
She invites you to connect with her at katrina.goldsaito.com.
About the Illustrator
Yas Imamura is the acclaimed artist of picture books such as Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda Hall, Winged Wonders by Meeg Pincus, and The Very Oldest Pear Tree by Nancy I. Sanders. She currently lives and works in Portland, Oregon.
She invites you to connect with her at yasimamura.com.
