THE LITTLE EXILE

Name: THE LITTLE EXILE
Author: Jeanette S. Arakawa
ISBN: 978-1-61172-036-5

by Jeanette S. Arakawa ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 16, 2017

These are experiences that need to be remembered, though Arakawa’s are not as compellingly related as other novels or...

bookshelf

A child of Japanese immigrants looks back on her World War II–era experiences in internment camps and afterward.

Changing names and inventing details to fill in the gaps between memories, Arakawa, in character as Shizuye, begins with her 1932 birth on a Murphy bed in San Francisco, takes her narrative through multiple moves that become forced ones in the wake of Pearl Harbor, then concludes with a temporary postwar settlement in Denver and final journey back to the West Coast. Despite the fictive fill, her account is spotty and episodic, more hindered than helped in its course by such details as painstaking descriptions of the route between one home and the local playground or tedious tallies of the comings and goings of briefly known schoolmates. As much a personal story as testament to a historical outrage, her recollections mingle references to domestic strife, pre-adolescent bed-wetting, and suicidal impulses following the internment with incidents of being jeered as a “Jap” on the way home from school, encounters with neighborhood “racial covenants,” and other manifestations of prejudice—not to mention repeated forcible removals to hastily constructed camps in California and, later, Arkansas. Occasional mentions of “Caucasian” visitors or a friend’s “dark skin” serve as reminders that most of the figures here are Asian or Asian-American.

These are experiences that need to be remembered, though Arakawa’s are not as compellingly related as other novels or personal accounts of the travesty. (afterword) (Historical fiction. 12-16)

Pub Date: May 16, 2017

ISBN: 978-1-61172-036-5

Page Count: 240

Publisher: Stone Bridge Press

Review Posted Online: March 28, 2017

Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2017

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

bookshelf

DON'T CALL ME HERO

by Ray Villareal ‧ RELEASE DATE: Oct. 31, 2011

A good story with some unexpected twists

bookshelf

After saving the life of a famous model, a 14-year-old Mexican-American boy learns the pressures of popularity and the definition of true heroism.

Dallas freshman Rawly Sánchez knows that life is not perfect. His older brother Jaime is in prison, while his mother’s Mexican restaurant is barely staying afloat. Now, he can’t even visit his brother on Saturdays anymore, or he will miss the required tutoring for the algebra class he is failing. Small bursts of happiness come in the comic books he loves and in hanging out with his nerdy, often-annoying, wisecracking Jewish best friend Nevin Steinberg. Things take a turn for the worse when someone accidentally sets a pig loose in his mom’s restaurant, and the incident makes the local news. Then, Nevin talks Rawly into performing as a duo at the school talent show, where he makes a fool of himself in front of his crush, Miyoko. Everything changes when Rawly misses his bus stop and ends up rescuing 22-year-old model Nikki Demetrius when her car plunges into a river. Instantly, Rawly is on the local and national news, hailed as a hero for saving Nikki’s life. The third-person narration follows Rawley’s journey as he learns who his real friends are and the difference between comic-book and real-world heroes.

A good story with some unexpected twists . (Fiction. 12-15)

Pub Date: Oct. 31, 2011

ISBN: 978-1-55885-711-7

Page Count: 208

Publisher: Arte Público

Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2011

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2011

Categories:

CHILDREN'S GENERAL CHILDREN'S

- BOOK REVIEW
CHRONICLES OF A LUCHADOR
by Ray Villareal

- BOOK REVIEW
ON THE OTHER SIDE OF THE BRIDGE
by Ray Villareal

- BOOK REVIEW
BODY SLAMMED!
by Ray Villareal

bookshelf

THE ENCYCLOPEDIA OF ME

by Karen Rivers ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 1, 2012

Though the footnotes feel gimmicky and distracting, readers will likely be able to look past them (or just skip over them)...

bookshelf

Cleverly woven through the titular encyclopedia—with entries as seemingly mundane as “Apple” and “Oxen”—is the touchingly real and often humorous story of a preteen’s struggles with family, friendship and first love.

Isadora “Tink” Aaron-Martin, nearly 13, means to make the most of her recent grounding by using her time on house arrest to write an encyclopedia, heavily annotated with footnotes. Frustrated by her reputation as the peacemaker, Tink’s entries about life with an autistic brother are fresh and painfully honest. Rivers doesn’t tiptoe around the destructive impact the syndrome can have on a family. Rather, through Tink, she explores what it’s like to grow up in a house where everyone is constantly walking on eggshells, waiting for the next violent outburst. But family isn’t the only place where Tink feels invisible. She also walks in the shadow of her “best friend,” Freddie Blue Anderson, who seems to care more about being “pops” (popular) than about Tink. It isn’t until a blue-haired skateboarder named Kai moves in next door that she gradually finds the strength to put herself first, both at home and at school.

Though the footnotes feel gimmicky and distracting, readers will likely be able to look past them (or just skip over them) and cheer for Tink as she comes into her own. (Fiction. 12-14)