The Fences Between Us
By Kirby Larson
Scholastic Press, $12.99, 313 pages
Thirteen-year-old Piper Davis’s brother, Hank, leaves for boot camp, to see the world via the Navy. Their older sister is in college. Their father is a pastor in the part of Seattle called Japantown. Piper’s biggest worries are whether her father will let her wear Tangee lipstick, and whether her crush on Bud will be returned. Despite Reverend Davis’s church activities, Piper is semi-oblivious to her neighborhood’s biases toward the Japanese.
Then Pearl Harbor is bombed. America enters the war. Japanese communities are evacuated. Families are sent to camps. When the families in Seattle’s Japantown are sent to the Minidoka War Relocation Center in Eden, Idaho, Piper’s father gets government permission to follow his congregation and remain their pastor at the new center.
Piper’s diary entries from 1941 to 1943 reflect her growing maturity. Worries for Hank’s safety in the Pacific mingle with her moral outrage at the treatment of Japanese families. With her camera, Piper becomes a witnesses to their steady dignity in the face of injustice. Tragedies and triumphs interweave throughout this book. Like Piper’s camera, Larson captures a shameful episode in our nation’s history.
Reviewed by Elizabeth Varadan
See more at: San Francisco Book Review and Sacramento Book Review
Interesting! Did they repackage this book / the series? I seem to remember the Dear America / Dear Canada / Royal Diaries being small hardcovers with full-body shots of the girls... the image here looks like a paperback with a very different style of cover formatting.
ReplyDeleteNice review. This isn't the type of book I'd normally choose, but with the backdrop of Japanese internment, I just might pick it up.
ReplyDeleteNice review...like Rosi said it would not be the type of book I would pick up, but then you never know. I am interseted in Asian themes. :)
ReplyDeleteFaith, yes, they have repackaged the series. I did another review (for SBR) on Voyage on the Great Titanic, and I had the earlier version I picked up in a used book store (for reasons related to my WIP); same author, different picture.
ReplyDeleteRosi and Rachna, the book is well worth the read. Larson really captures the whole era of the forties as well as telling a poignant, wonderful tale that sticks with you.
Sounds like a great book, and I am glad the author doesn't skimp on that important and shameful time in American history.
ReplyDeleteHi, Lydia, I agree. And Kirby Larson did a beautiful job of presenting it in a way that a young person can really connect with.
ReplyDelete