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LITERATURE FOR YOUTH |
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Listed below are the books in
my own collection. I am also including a review (found on |
| Journey to
Topaz by Yoshiko Uchida illustrated by Donald Carrick Heyday Books/2005 (1971 ©) Although classified as juvenile reading, many adults will find this book enlightening. It is written with skill, sensitivity and a confidence gained from first-hand experience. ALA Notable California Recommended Reading List Core Title -- Lee Ruttle, Pacific Citizen **Found a study guide at: http://bss.sfsu.edu/internment/njahs1.html |
| The Bracelet by Yoshiko Uchida illustrated by Joanna Yardley Putnam 1973/1993 From School Library Journal
Grade 2-5-It is 1942, and seven-year-old Emi is being
sent from her home in Berkeley, California, to an internment camp with
her mother and older sister. Her father was arrested earlier and
incarcerated in a camp in Montana. Temporarily herded into stables at a
race track with other Japanese-American families, Emi realizes that she
has lost the bracelet that her best friend, Laurie Madison, gave her as
a parting keepsake. At first desolate, she soon realizes that she does
not need the token after all, as she will always carry Laurie in her
heart and mind. Uchida employs a simple, descriptive style, allowing the
child's feelings to give punch to this vignette without becoming
sentimental. An afterword gives brief, dignified historical context to
the story. Yardley's watercolor illustrations both match and amplify the
text at every point, evincing the greatest sensitivity to the depiction
of character and to historical accuracy. This deceptively simple picture
book will find a ready readership and prove indispensable for
introducing this dark episode in American history.
John Philbrook, San Francisco Public Library Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc |
| THE CHILDREN OF TOPAZ by Michael O. Tunnell and George W. Chilcoat Holiday House, 1996 From School Library Journal
Grade 4-6?The authors have constructed their text around
an actual classroom diary kept by American children of Japanese
ancestry, unfairly and unconstitutionally remanded to prison camp during
World War II. Selections of entries made by a third-grade class cover
the period from March 8 to August 12, 1943. Under each date, the brief
accounts are given, followed by extensive, well-researched commentaries
explaining the children's allusions, expanding upon the diary text, and
placing events in socio-historical perspective. The youngsters reveal a
lively interest in the world around them and a patriotic support of the
war effort. The commentary details the bleakness and cruelty of their
situations and amazing loyalty in light of the injustices heaped upon
their families by the U.S. government and their fellow citizens. The
well-chosen illustrations consist of fine-quality period photographs, a
layout of the camp, and black-and-white reproductions of the children's
crayon artwork. The photos are often quite moving and bring home the
experiences described in the text. Others have written first-hand
accounts of the internment camps, largely reminiscences for children
told from an adult perspective. Here readers are exposed to
nine-year-olds writing as it happened? and are given a timely reminder
for those who say, "It can't happen here." A vital purchase for all
collections.?John Philbrook, San Francisco Public Library
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| A PLACE WHERE SUNFLOWERS GROW By Amy Lee-Tai Illustrated by Felicia Hoshino Children's Book Press, 2006 From School Library Journal
Grade 1-4–Lee-Tai based this story on the experiences of
her grandparents and her mother, who were interned in Topaz, Utah,
during World War II. With quiet understatement, the text focuses on the
confusion and sadness young Mari feels after her family's abrupt
relocation to the camp. In the harsh desert landscape, she thinks
wistfully of her home, where she played with her brother in a yard
filled with flowers. Her parents are worried about her silence and
listlessness, but an art class offers her a means of expressing her
feelings. She makes a friend as well, and when her desert sunflowers put
up seedlings, she feels a new sense of hope. The story is told in both
English and Japanese, and the earth-toned illustrations, created using
watercolors, ink, tissue paper, and acrylic paint, nicely detail the
simple plot. Hoshino modeled some of her compositions on those of Hisako
Hibi, the authors grandmother and a prominent Japanese-American painter.
Other picture books dealing with this topic include Eve Buntings So
Far from the Sea (Clarion, 1998), Yoshiko Uchida's The Bracelet
(Philomel, 1993), and Rick Noguchi and Deneen Jenks' Flowers from
Mariko (Lee & Low, 2001). Lee-Tai's tale, with its emphasis on the
internees dignity and feelings, offers the gentlest introduction to this
tragic episode.–Marilyn Taniguchi, Beverly Hills Public Library, CA
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| REMEMBERING MANZANAR: Life in a Japanese
Internment Camp by Michael L. Cooper Clarion, 2002 From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8-This account of life in the World War II
relocation center is framed by introductory and concluding chapters
about the author's participation in the 2001 Manzanar Pilgrimage.
Although covering some of the same historical information as Daniel
Davis's Behind Barbed Wire (Dutton, 1982; o.p.) and Ellen Levine's A
Fence Away from Freedom (Putnam, 1995), this book has some unique
features. It includes quotations taken from the Manzanar Free Press,
published by the evacuees under the scrutiny of camp officials, and a
chapter about the photographers whose work accompanies the text on
almost every page. They include Dorothea Lange; Ansel Adams; and Toyo
Miyatake, a professional photographer from Los Angeles who smuggled film
and a camera lens into the camp. This book is intended for a younger
audience than Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and James D. Houston's
autobiographical Farewell to Manzanar (Bantam, 1983). It will complement
Jerry Stanley's I Am an American (Crown, 1994), which focuses on the
experiences of specific Manzanar evacuees. It is especially suited to
readers who already know a bit about the subject from Eve Bunting's
picture book So Far from the Sea (Clarion, 1998) or Ken Mochizuki's
Baseball Saved Us (Lee & Low, 1993) and want to learn more.
Ginny Gustin, Sonoma County Library System, Santa Rosa, CA |
| I AM AN AMERICAN: A True Story of Japanese
Internment by Jerry Stanley illustrated with photographs Scholastic, 1998 From School Library Journal
Grade 5-10-In clear and fascinating prose, Stanley has
set forth the compelling story of one of America's darkest times- the
internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. He has based his
account on the experiences of Shi Nomura, who was sent to Manzanar in
the deserts of eastern California when he was a high school senior. But
the author weaves in more than absorbing personal details; he places the
camps in a broader historical context, from Japanese immigration and the
resentment it aroused to outstanding Japanese American service in the
war. His meticulously researched volume is accompanied by numerous, fine
period black-and-white photographs, many by Dorothea Lange and Ansel
Adams; and he makes judicious use of maps. This eloquent account of the
disastrous results of racial prejudice stands as a reminder to us in
today's pluralistic society.
Diane S. Marton, Arlington County Library, VA |
| THE JOURNEY Painting and text by Sheila Hamanaka Book design by Steve Frederick Orchard, 1990 From School Library Journal
Grade 4 Up-- Hamanaka has created a five-panel mural
depicting the Japanese-American experience with particular emphasis on
the watershed of that experience, the concentration camps. Here the
mural is reproduced detail by detail with amplifying text. The entire
mural in toto is reproduced at the end in a two-page spread. The
paintings themselves are beautiful, bold, and moving, covering the
public facts yet incorporating a personal touch in a cameo of the
artist's siblings. When broken into smaller segments, as here, they
reveal an extraordinary amount of detail, all of it meaningful. Hamanaka
proves herself a lively yet scholarly writer as well. The anguish and
horror of Japanese-Americans during World War II is placed clearly and
vividly in context with narrative and contemporary quotations. Absorbing
facts are brought to light, such as Germans at the Nuremberg Trials
justifying prison camps, citing the American model. Earl Warren's stance
is positively chilling, particularly in view of his later role as chief
investigator of the Kennedy assassination. The prison camp protests and
reprisals are also brought out with full pathos. More recent events such
as the quest for reparations--legal, moral, and monetary--bring this
journey to a fitting close. Hamanaka has created a visual monument to
the struggle of Japanese-Americans, supplementing her original creation
with prose of simple and unique power. There are other books on this
subject--Kitano's The Japanese Americans (Chelsea House, 1987) , Davis'
Behind Barbed Wire (Dutton, 1982) among them--but none with the punch
and universality of this one.
- John Philbrook, San Francisco Public Library |