Publishers Weekly
03/18/2024
Embracing a child’s wide-eyed perspective of historical events, activist and actor Takei details his family’s incarceration in Japanese prison camps during WWII. Takei is four years old during the 1941 Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, after which “the lives of all Japanese Americans were suddenly and drastically changed.” Following President Roosevelt’s declaration of war on Japan, a February 1942 presidential order forces the Takeis, along with all other Japanese Americans on the West Coast, from their Los Angeles home. Pages detail the family’s time at Arkansas’s swampy Camp Rohwer (“a strange and magical place” where the author caught tadpoles in a drainage ditch) and Northern California’s Tule Lake, a maximum-security prison with “huge, rumbling tank patrols.” Lee’s crisp mixed-media illustrations echo the text’s childlike tone (when the family is held at a racetrack, Takei “thought it would be fun to sleep where the horsies slept”) in portraying individual, familial, and communal experiences throughout a “hard, terrible war.” A glossary and pronunciation guide, notes, and photos conclude. Ages 6–9. (Apr.)
From the Publisher
"A candid yet tender glimpse at a bleak chapter in U.S. history." —Kirkus Reviews
"This worthwhile picture book introduces an important topic in American history." —Booklist
"Takei’s narration is contemplative but conversational, inviting the reader to see his experience both through the eyes of his child self and the somber reflections of an adult....relatable but terribly bittersweet." —The Bulletin
Kirkus Reviews
2024-01-20
Star Trek actor and activist Takei looks back on a childhood marked by war and injustice, transformed by parental heroes.
Takei was 4 years old in 1941, when Pearl Harbor was bombed. Soon after, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, decreeing that Japanese American people be imprisoned in concentration camps. Takei and his parents and younger siblings were forced to leave their home in Los Angeles and live in a series of camps—first at the Santa Anita racetrack and later at Camp Rohwer, Arkansas, and Tule Lake, California. Takei offers an unflinchingly honest, child’s-eye view of these events: stalls stinking of horse manure and filled with bugs and germs, sweltering barracks guarded by sentry towers with armed soldiers. Mindful, though, of young readers’ sensibilities, he interweaves moments of levity and escape: movie nights, a baseball league, a dog named Blackie, a snowball fight, and more. His parents’ courage shines through, too: Mama transforming their dismal surroundings into a home; Daddy serving as manager of their block. Lee’s mixed-media illustrations depict children in brightly colored outfits set against backgrounds of earth tones and deep blues to capture readers’ attention and underscore the individuality of the imprisoned citizens. Lee also inserts visual details to complement Takei’s evocative text. An author’s note details the harassment Takei’s family experienced as they rebuilt their lives in L.A.
A candid yet tender glimpse at a bleak chapter in U.S. history. (glossary and pronunciation guide, photographs) (Picture-book memoir. 4-9)
