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By:

Pearl

by Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie
2024 / 144 pages

This is a very different slice of World War II history. Amy is a Japanese-American teenager, living in 1941 Hawaii. The US is not at war with Japan… not yet. So when news comes that her Japanese great-grandmother, her sōsobo, is sick, maybe even dying, the family decides to send 13-year-old Amy to go tend to her. So on to a boat she goes, and off Amy heads, to a farm just outside of Hiroshima, and a country where everything is so very different.

She was supposed to be there for just a few months. But then on December 8, 1941, news comes that the Japanese Navy had launched a surprise attack on Pearl Harbor. Now the American Amy is living in enemy territory, though amongst cousins and uncles, aunts, and her dear sōsobo who are all part of the… enemy? She’s in an entirely unexpected situation, and what’s a mere child to make of all of this?

Her relatives tell Amy, “You are Japanese now.” But she is American too. So, Amy wonders, can she be both?

Her English skills are noticed by an officer. He takes her away from her Japanese family and assigns her to a team of women listening to and translating American radio broadcasts. Amy wonders, is she a traitor? Or could her work help end the war, by helping Japan understand America?

Then rumors start coming in, of the US locking up Japanese Americans in prison camps. Amy can’t believe it… but finds out the rumors are true. Her parents have been imprisoned, and her little baby brother died in the camps. Amy stopped worrying about being a traitor. She did the work she was assigned.

This is the story of a girl trapped between nations. Yes, in World War II there was a clear divide between the wicked aggressors and the good Allied forces – we’re not trying to muddy the waters or make equivalences where they don’t exist. But in our broken world, even the “good guys” aren’t good always. That nuance might make this a hard one for some kids to read and contend with. What would they have done in Amy’s shoes? Did she betray her country? Did it betray her?

In a world in which the choice too often is portrayed as being between Trump Derangement Syndrome, and Trump Worship Syndrome, understanding that no one is as depraved as they could be, or as good as they should be, is a lesson that many are in need of learning. This book could help.

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Book Reviews, Graphic novels

Stealing Home

by J. Torres and David Namisato 2021 / 112 pages During World War II, after Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, Canada rounded up Japanese Canadians living on the coast and shipped them away to abandoned mining towns further in the interior. To add to the horror, this "temporary measure" came with devastating permanent consequences: their homes and most of their goods were sold, and the money was used to build and maintain their internment camps. So when the war ended and they were released, these families couldn't go home. They had to start from nothing. So how could such a sad chapter of Canadian history get a gentle enough treatment to be suitable for this Grade-4-and-up graphic novel? By focusing on how at least some of these Japanese Canadians managed to overcome their mistreatment. For Sandy Saito, baseball was a big help. Even before the war, anyone of Asian descent didn't exactly fit in with the predominantly white population of Canada. But on the baseball diamond, it didn't matter what others thought; all that mattered was how you played. As we're introduced to Sandy we find out this young boy is a huge fan of the Vancouver Asahi, a local baseball team made up of Japanese Canadians. Because Asahi players were smaller than their opponents, they couldn't play bash ball; their game wasn't about hitting more home runs than the opposition. They, instead, played "brain ball" with steals and bunts. And it worked so well they won the league championship 11 of the previous 24 years. When Sandy and his family were sent away, he took his baseball glove, as did others. They had no insulation in their cabins, and families had to share space. There were outhouses instead of bathrooms. And they couldn't leave. But they could play baseball. I don't have any cautions to offer. The only critique I can think of is that in making this gentle enough for elementary students, the authors might have made a little too little of the horrible abuse that happened. My own fourth grader read this, and thought it was quite good, but it didn't disturb her like it did me. That's probably because I was reading between the lines, and she was just taking it as it was told on the page. As to audience, she didn't know if it would grab a fourth-grade boy's attention. I think she might be on to something. Even though baseball is central to the story, this isn't a sports book. We don't see any great plays, or tight games, so it doesn't have that sort of boyish pull. But for elementary-and-up kids with any interest in history, this will be a very intriguing read. And for adults like me, who never knew about these events, this is a must-read. If we want our government to act with restraint in the future, we need to remember the times when it didn't do so in the past. We need to know, and we need to share that history, lest in forgetting it, we have to live through it again. For a more brutal account of how the US treated Japanese Americans during the war, you'll want to read We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration....