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Review: Internment Books for KidsTitles Sensitively Address Tough Themes of Discrimination and Friendship in Wartime
I did not mean to introduce my children to the history of Japanese Americans and the internment camps at so young an age. It was an accident. I was reading a book aloud to my children without previewing it myself first because I was on deadline and had to write a review of it that night. Don’t ever do this. Then I turned a page, and there was a picture of fair-haired American soldiers pointing rifles at a room full of people that looked like us. My children, only two and three years old at the time, were frightened and confused. Oops. Like I said, don’t ever do it this way. On the positive side, since they were introduced to it at such a young age, they have always known about it. I never had to steel myself for "The Talk" to explain it to them. Given the choice, I am sure I would have put it off for as long as I could, maybe even forever. I certainly understand now why many of the Issei and Nisei who lived in the camps did not tell the Sansei and Yonsei generations—something I did not understand at all before I had children and had to explain it myself. Luckily there are now many wonderful books to make this difficult story a little easier to explain. Some of these have been included in my earlier reviews of picture books about growing up Asian American, but some were fresh, recent discoveries for me approaching the February 19 Day of Remembrance. Two titles, by the wonderful JA author Ken Mochizuki, are not about internment, but nonetheless feature nikkei characters thoughtfully and movingly portrayed against a backdrop of war. All are worthy readings that sensitively broach tough but important themes of discrimination and friendship, war and courage, injustice and reconciliation. In this sense, all can be enriching and relevant for parents and kids of any background, in any era. -- Frances
The Bracelet
Flowers from Mariko  Mariko's
family has been freed from a Japanese-American internment camp, but the
transition hasn't been easy. Because her father's truck has disappeared, he
can't start up his gardening business, and the family must move to a trailer
park. One day, Mariko's father gives her two seed envelopes. She plants the
seeds and even serenades them. However, Mariko's father is so preoccupied
that he doesn't notice her garden—until he hears her singing. At last he
smiles. Flowers from Mariko tells of a family striving to
re-establish their lives—through hope, perseverance, and love.
Baseball Saved Us
Heroes
Passage to Freedom - The Sugihara Story
So Far From the Sea  Before
Laura's family moves across the country to Massachusetts, her family makes
one last trip to her grandfather's grave at the Manzanar War Relocation
Camp. While cleaning up his grave, her parents explain what the camps and
the relocation were like. Laura remembers a story about how her grandfather
told her father to put on his Cub Scout uniform so that the soldiers who
came to get them would know they were Americans, and leaves as an offering
her father’s Cub Scout scarf to show that her grandfather "was a true
American." The illustrations alternate between black and white "flashbacks"
and color pictures of the present. The story also moves fluidly between past
and present.
Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience
During and After the World War II Internment Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at the Manzanar internment camp with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called The Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the nation's #1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In." At age thirty-seven, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child she was. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment as well as the dignity and great resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning circumstances. Written with her husband, Jeanne delivers a powerful first-person account that reveals her search for the meaning of Manzanar. Farewell to Manzanar has become a staple of curriculum in schools and on campuses across the country. Last year the San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the twentieth century’s 100 best nonfiction books from west of the Rockies.
The Children of Topaz - The Story of a Japanese-American Internment Camp
Based on a Classroom Diary After the attack on Pearl Harbor during World War II, Japanese-Americans were ordered by the U.S. government to leave their homes and be interned. Lillian "Anne" Yamauchi Hori was a third-grade teacher in the Topaz, Utah, internment camp whose class kept a daily diary. Although the students experienced injustices, their diary revealed their many regular activities: collecting desert pets, putting on plays and celebrating holidays. A great resource book on internment camp experience. Ages 12 & up.
Blue Jay in the Desert
Related Readings
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Just before seven year old Emi leaves home
for the internment camps with her family, her best friend Laurie Madison
comes to say goodbye and give her a bracelet. Emi puts it on immediately and
promises never to take it off. However, in the course of going to the
check-in center, taking the bus to Tanforan Racetracks, and settling into
the horse stall that is to be their home until they go another camp in the
Utah desert, Emi loses the bracelet, the one thing that would help her
remember her best friend. Then she realizes that she can remember those she
carries in her heart without things like photos or bracelets. A story of
friendship which gently introduces the history of the Japanese American
internment camps. Also by Yoshiko Uchida (Donald Carrick, illustrator):
