Rated 5 stars ***** ARC. ebook. Tor Teen. To be published January 7, 2020.
Alex was ten years old in 1935 when his teacher forced him to become pen pals with a girl named Charlie who lived in Paris, thousands of miles away from his American home on Bainbridge Island. Despite his initial horror at being paired with a girl their friendship deepened as, letter after letter, year after year, they shared their innermost thoughts.
In 1941 Alex’s life forever changed when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. Though he was an American citizen, and his parents had emigrated from Japan, they were treated as enemies by neighbors who’d known them for years. A law was passed saying all Japanese, regardless of their citizenship, had to relocate to holding camps. Alex and his family were sent to Manzanar where they, along with 10,000 others, lived as prisoners surrounded by barbed wire and soldiers.
Meanwhile Charlie was experiencing her own prejudice due to being Jewish, and their letters helped keep them grounded. As the war dragged on Charlie was forced into hiding to avoid roundups, and her letters ceased. Alex enlists in the 442nd Battalion, created solely of Japanese-American soldiers, partly to get his father released from prison and partly to find out what happened to Charlie. While in Europe he experiences the horrors of war, but thoughts of finding Charlie kept him sane. He is determined to find her and live out the dreams from their letters.
I absolutely LOVED this amazingly well researched book, and couldn’t put it down. The author did an excellent job in his descriptions of what it was like for Japanese American citizens to be interned for no crime other than for their ancestry, and in describing the battles endured by the 442nd. He brilliantly fused together the prejudice experienced by both Parisian Jews and Japanese Americans and, I will have to say, I cried at the end.
I don’t want to give out spoilers as to why I cried, so will leave it up to you to read it and find out for yourself. Maybe you’ll shed a tear too. I predict this book will win lots of awards in the 2020 cycle. You read it here first!
Highly recommended for ages 16 and older.
I received an advance copy of this book by the publisher in exchange for an honest review.
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