Klara and the Sun

• Genre: Fiction; dystopian/science fiction
• Originally Published: 2021
• Reading Level/Interest: Grades 9-12; college/adult
• Structure/Length: 6 parts; approx. 307 pages; approx. 10 hours, 16 minutes on audio
• Protagonist and Central Conflict: Klara, an android, lives in the US in the near future. She serves as an Artificial Friend to Josie, a girl whose intelligence has been “lifted,” as is common for children in her society, but whose health is failing as a result of the procedure.
• Potential Sensitivity Issues: Serious illness of a child; prejudice based on socio-economic status

Kazuo Ishiguro, Author

• Bio: Born in 1954 in Nagasaki, Japan; raised in Britain after age 5; backpacked across parts of the US and Canada before beginning a program of literature and philosophy at the University of Kent at Canterbury; gradually began writing fiction while becoming interested in social and political issues; early novels well received, then became an international best-selling author with The Remains of the Day; musician, screenplay writer, short fiction writer, and novelist; won the Nobel Prize for Literature (2017)
• Other Works: The Remains of the Day (1989); Never Let Me Go (2005); The Buried Giant (2015)
• Awards: The Booker Prize (longlisted; 2021); named a best book of the year by the New York Times, NPR, the Guardian, the Washington Post, and others