A Japanese American incarceration narrative told through an original and effective blend of prose and illustration.
A Japanese American family is split between an incarceration camp and the battlefront.
It’s 1944, and Mak, Mari’s 18-year-old brother, has gone away to fight in World War II. Mari has vowed not to speak again until he comes back, no matter how strange her father or anyone else at Manzanar finds it. Mari spends her time drawing and waiting for letters from her brother, who experiences first basic training and then combat. Mak is forced to face the fact that the same government that locked his family up for being Japanese is happy enough to send him to the front—and racism from White fellow Americans continues overseas, of course. As Mak tries to protect his family from the uglier side of war, Mari contends with her quarreling parents, dismal life at camp, and her own volatile moods. Told through prose and black-and-white comic panels, Mari’s and Mak’s stories come to life. Mari’s sections are sometimes hampered by a disjointed narrative style that leaves her age and perception of events unclear and that is a mismatch for the relatively more brutal sections detailing Mak’s wartime experiences. Even so, the stark inequities that Japanese Americans faced as well as the quieter struggle of parents and children trying to understand each other and grow together both shine through.
A Japanese American incarceration narrative told through an original and effective blend of prose and illustration. (author’s note, bibliography) (Historical fiction. 10-15)Pub Date: Oct. 18, 2022
ISBN: 978-1-5344-7762-9
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Atheneum
Review Posted Online: July 26, 2022
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2022
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious.
If you made a recording to be heard by the aliens who found the iPod, what would you record?
For 11-year-old Alex Petroski, it's easy. He records everything. He records the story of how he travels to New Mexico to a rocket festival with his dog, Carl Sagan, and his rocket. He records finding out that a man with the same name and birthday as his dead father has an address in Las Vegas. He records eating at Johnny Rockets for the first time with his new friends, who are giving him a ride to find his dead father (who might not be dead!), and losing Carl Sagan in the wilds of Las Vegas, and discovering he has a half sister. He even records his own awful accident. Cheng delivers a sweet, soulful debut novel with a brilliant, refreshing structure. His characters manage to come alive through the “transcript” of Alex’s iPod recording, an odd medium that sounds like it would be confusing but really works. Taking inspiration from the Voyager Golden Record released to space in 1977, Alex, who explains he has “light brown skin,” records all the important moments of a journey that takes him from a family of two to a family of plenty.
Riveting, inspiring, and sometimes hilarious. (Fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Feb. 28, 2017
ISBN: 978-0-399-18637-0
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Dial Books
Review Posted Online: Oct. 18, 2016
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 1, 2016
BOOK REVIEW
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high...
Two parallel stories, one of a Syrian boy from Aleppo fleeing war, and another of a white American boy, son of a NATO contractor, dealing with the challenges of growing up, intersect at a house in Brussels.
Ahmed lost his father while crossing the Mediterranean. Alone and broke in Europe, he takes things into his own hands to get to safety but ends up having to hide in the basement of a residential house. After months of hiding, he is discovered by Max, a boy of similar age and parallel high integrity and courage, who is experiencing his own set of troubles learning a new language, moving to a new country, and being teased at school. In an unexpected turn of events, the two boys and their new friends Farah, a Muslim Belgian girl, and Oscar, a white Belgian boy, successfully scheme for Ahmed to go to school while he remains in hiding the rest of the time. What is at stake for Ahmed is immense, and so is the risk to everyone involved. Marsh invites art and history to motivate her protagonists, drawing parallels to gentiles who protected Jews fleeing Nazi terror and citing present-day political news. This well-crafted and suspenseful novel touches on the topics of refugees and immigrant integration, terrorism, Islam, Islamophobia, and the Syrian war with sensitivity and grace.
A captivating book situated in present-day discourse around the refugee crisis, featuring two boys who stand by their high values in the face of grave risk and succeed in drawing goodwill from others. (Historical fiction. 10-14)Pub Date: Aug. 7, 2018
ISBN: 978-1-250-30757-6
Page Count: 368
Publisher: Roaring Brook Press
Review Posted Online: June 10, 2018
Kirkus Reviews Issue: July 1, 2018
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