Cynthia Kadohata (born July 2, 1956)[1] is a Japanese American children's writer best known for her young adult novel Kira-Kira which won the Newbery Medal in 2005.

[2] She won the National Book Award for Young People's Literature in 2013 for The Thing About Luck.

Kadohata started her writing career with short story submissions to magazines.

It is about the Poston internment camp where her father was imprisoned during World War II.

[8] As of January 2021, Kadohata lived in Los Angeles with her boyfriend, son, and dogs.