The author’s visit to Manzanar, one of ten Japanese internment camps established during WWII, serves as the frame for this exploration of the forced evacuation of over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese-Americans and their lives in the relocation camp. Cooper’s (Slave Spirituals and the Jubilee Singers, not reviewed, etc.) concise prose describes how the bombing of Pearl Harbor led to the building of the camps. Later chapters detail how the prisoners struggled to adapt to surreal, humiliating conditions, slowly introducing Japanese food to the mess hall menus, gardening, playing sports, and going to school. Drawing heavily on primary-source material, including archival and contemporary interviews with internees and excerpts from the Manzanar Free Press, the text allows the prisoners to speak for themselves. Archival photographs lavishly illustrate the narrative, and one of the volume’s greatest strength is the opening discussion of the many photographers who chronicled life in the camps, from Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and others brought in by the government, to Toyo Miyatake, an internee who was allowed to compose and set up his photographs but who had to have a camp staff person press the shutter. Each photograph is credited, so readers can distinguish between US government propaganda and more accurate portrayals of camp life. An end note describes the author’s sources, but there are no specific references within the text. One great weakness is the history’s abrupt end: there is no effort to document the internees’ return to life outside the camps. That said, this offering stands as a worthy addition to the literature of the internment camps; the author’s comparison of post–Pearl Harbor US to post-9/11 US underscores his passionate plea to remember. (Nonfiction. 9-14)
Pub Date: Nov. 25, 2002
ISBN: 0-618-06778-7
Page Count: 96
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2002
Readers are often promised unforgettable protagonists—this memoir delivers one.
Abbas and his mother are about to board a plane for Turkey when authorities order her to remain in post-Revolution Iran with his father, Karim; Abbas, at Karim’s insistence, flies alone to Istanbul to stay and apply for a British visa—he is 9.
Abbas doesn’t speak Turkish; a promised helper fails him; the fleabag hotel he’s deposited in is in a dangerous neighborhood. His intelligence, resilience and cocky charm help (though he owes more to luck and the kindness of strangers). He survives—barely. Karim’s lessons (be wary of strangers, change currency on the black market, eat just one meal a day to save money) go only so far. Here, everyone’s a stranger. Abbas must learn to tell friend from foe. Kazerooni doesn’t dilute harsh events or assign them benign meanings retroactively—there’s no “everything happens for a reason.” Abbas’ anguish and fear, his repeatedly dashed hopes are wrenching. Yet whether he’s crushed or elated, the story itself is uplifting; readers will feel exhilarated when he solves a problem or makes the important discovery that what terrifies him—his vulnerability—is his biggest asset, bringing him notice from kindly adults who offer help. Other accounts of displaced children—China’s “paper sons,” young Central American refugees—have borne witness to ways human-generated calamities harm their weakest victims, but seldom this convincingly. Although Abbas’ account can be harrowing, it is told plainly, and these are not, regrettably, uncommon experiences for children, making this both accessible to and suitable for a middle-grade audience.
Readers are often promised unforgettable protagonists—this memoir delivers one. (author’s note) (Memoir. 9-14)Pub Date: Oct. 21, 2014
ISBN: 978-1-4778-4783-1
Page Count: 224
Publisher: Skyscape
Review Posted Online: July 28, 2014
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 15, 2014
A vivid yet even-handed account of the ill-fated Donner Party—the California-bound wagon train that was forced by impassable snow to camp for the winter of 1846—47 on the eastern slopes of the Sierra Nevada, resorting to cannibalism when there was literally nothing else to eat. Calabro neither shrinks from nor sensationalizes this aspect of the story. Instead she places it in a carefully constructed context beginning with the start of the journey in Springfield, Illinois, on April 15, and chronicling each unfortunate decision along the way that ultimately led to the company’s entrapment. Making good use of primary sources, especially the letters and memoirs of Virginia Reed, who turned 13 on the journey, the author tells of Virginia’s excitement at having her own pony to ride west. However, she doesn’t limit the story to Virginia’s perspective, but skillfully profiles many members of the party, including Virginia’s dynamic father, James, who strongly favored taking an unproven shortcut, and the intelligent and perceptive Tamsen Donner, who was firmly against it. The result is a combination of well-researched factual detail, a gripping narrative, strong characterizations, and a thoughtful analysis of the historical record. (b&w photos, chronology, further reading, bibliography, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)
Pub Date: April 19, 1999
ISBN: 0-395-86610-3
Page Count: 192
Publisher: Clarion Books
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 1999
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