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We Are Not Free by Traci Chee
Call Number: F CHEE

ISBN: 9780358131434

Publication Date: 2020-09-01

Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
384 Pages
Ages 12+

We Are Not Free, the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II. Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps. In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.

Sears Subject Headings:

Japanese Americans--Forced removal and internment, 1942-1945--Fiction.
World War, 1939-1945--Fiction.
Prejudices--Fiction.
Racism.
Concentration camps.
Japanese American families.
Japanese Americans.
Prejudices.
Concentration camps--United States--Juvenile fiction.
Japanese American families--Juvenile fiction.
World War, 1939-1945--Juvenile fiction.
Prejudices--Juvenile fiction.
Concentration camps--United States--Fiction.
World War, 1939-1945--United States--Fiction.
Prejudices--Fiction.
California--History--20th century--Fiction.
California--History--Juvenile fiction.
California--History--Fiction.
Young adult works.
Social problem fiction.

This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II by Andrew Fukuda
Call Number: F FAKUDA

ISBN: 9781250192387

Publication Date: 2020-01-07

Tor Teen
382 Pages
Ages 13-18

For readers of The Librarian Of Auschwitz, This Light Between Us is a powerfully affecting story of World War II about the unlikeliest of pen pals--a Japanese American boy and a French Jewish girl--as they fight to maintain hope in a time of war. "I remember visiting Manzanar and standing in the windswept plains where over ten thousand internees were once imprisoned, their voices cut off. I remember how much I wanted to write a story that did right by them. Hopefully this book delivers."--Andrew Fukuda

In 1935, ten-year-old Alex Maki from Bainbridge Island, Washington is disgusted when he's forced to become pen pals with Charlie Lévy of Paris, France--a girl. He thought she was a boy. In spite of Alex's reluctance, their letters continue to fly across the Atlantic--and along with them, the shared hopes and dreams of friendship. Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the growing Nazi persecution of Jews force them to confront the darkest aspects of human nature. From the desolation of an internment camp on the plains of Manzanar to the horrors of Auschwitz and the devastation of European battlefields, the only thing they can hold onto are the memories of their letters. But nothing can dispel the light between them.

Macmillan Publishers Website

Sears Subject Headings:

United States--Army--Regimental Combat Team, 442nd--Fiction.
Pen pals--Fiction.
Friendship--Fiction.
Prejudices--Fiction.
Japanese Americans--Forced removal and internment, 1942-1945--Fiction.
Jews--France--Paris--Fiction.
Fiction.

Grenade by Alan Gratz
Call Number: F GRATZ

ISBN: 9781338245691

Publication Date: 2018-10-09

Scholastic Press
270 Pages
Ages 11+

Hideki lives on the island of Okinawa, near Japan. When WWII crashes onto his shores, Hideki is drafted into the Blood and Iron Student Corps to fight for the Japanese army. He is handed a grenade and a set of instructions: Don't come back until you've killed an American soldier. Ray, a young American Marine, has just landed on Okinawa. He doesn't know what to expect -- or if he'll make it out alive. He just knows that the enemy is everywhere. Hideki and Ray each fight their way across the island, surviving heart-pounding ambushes and dangerous traps. But when the two of them collide in the middle of the battle, the choices they make in that instant will change everything.

Sears Subject Headings:

World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Japan--Okinawa Island--Juvenile fiction.
Ryukyuans--Juvenile fiction.
Japanese--Juvenile fiction.
Marines--Juvenile fiction.
Survival--Juvenile fiction.
War stories.
World War, 1939-1945--Campaigns--Japan--Okinawa Island--Fiction.
Okinawa-shi (Japan)--History--20th century--Fiction.
War fiction.

Under the Broken Sky by Mariko Nagai
Call Number: F NAGAI

ISBN: 9781250159212

Publication Date: 2019-10-15

Henry Holt and Company
293 Pages
Ages 10-14
A beautifully told middle-grade novel-in-verse about a Japanese orphan's experience in occupied rural Manchuria during World War II. Twelve-year-old Natsu and her family live a quiet farm life in Manchuria, near the border of the Soviet Union. But the life they've known begins to unravel when her father is recruited to the Japanese army, and Natsu and her little sister, Cricket, are left orphaned and destitute. In a desperate move to keep her sister alive, Natsu sells Cricket to a Russian family following the 1945 Soviet occupation. The journey to redemption for Natsu's broken family is rife with struggles, but Natsu is tenacious and will stop at nothing to get her little sister back. Literary and historically insightful, this is one of the great untold stories of WWII.

Sears Subject Headings:

World War, 1939-1945--China--Manchuria--Juvenile fiction.
Novels in verse.
World War, 1939-1945--Fiction.
Refugees, Fiction.
Sisters--Fiction.
Manchuria (China)--History--1931-1945--Juvenile fictions.
Manchuria (China)--History--1931-1945--Fiction.
Fiction.

The Japanese Lover by Isabel Allende
Call Number: PQ8098.1.L54 A67513 2015

ISBN: 9781501116971

Publication Date: 2015-11-03

Atria Books
321 Pages
Ages 18+

In 1939, as Poland falls under the shadow of the Nazis, young Alma Belasco's parents send her away to live in safety with an aunt and uncle in their opulent mansion in San Francisco. There, as the rest of the world goes to war, she encounters Ichimei Fukuda, the quiet and gentle son of the family's Japanese gardener. Unnoticed by those around them, a tender love affair begins to blossom. Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, the two are cruelly pulled apart as Ichimei and his family like thousands of other Japanese Americans are declared enemies and forcibly relocated to internment camps run by the United States government. Throughout their lifetimes, Alma and Ichimei reunite again and again, but theirs is a love that they are forever forced to hide from the world. Decades later, Alma is nearing the end of her long and eventful life. Irina Bazili, a care worker struggling to come to terms with her own troubled past, meets the elderly woman and her grandson, Seth, at San Francisco's charmingly eccentric Lark House nursing home. As Irina and Seth forge a friendship, they become intrigued by a series of mysterious gifts and letters sent to Alma, eventually learning about Ichimei and this extraordinary secret passion that has endured for nearly seventy years. Sweeping through time and spanning generations and continents, The Japanese Lover explores questions of identity, abandonment, redemption, and the unknowable impact of fate on our lives.

Sears Subject Headings:

Older women--Fiction.
Love in old age--Fiction.
World War, 1939-1945--Fiction.
Japanese Americans--Fiction.
Family secrets--Fiction.
FICTION/ Historical.
FICTION/ Romance/ Historical.
FICTION/ Literary.
San Francisco (Calif.)--Fiction.
Love stories.
Fiction.