A moving primary source sheds light on the experience of Japanese American children imprisoned in a World War II internment camp.
Michael O. Tunnell is a retired professor of children's literature and the author of several books for young readers, including Candy Bomber- The Story of the Berlin Airlift's "Chocolate Pilot," an Orbis Pictus Honor book. While writing Desert Diary, he had the privilege of interviewing Mae Yanagi and many of her former classmates from Topaz Camp.
♦ This nonfiction resource spotlights the experiences of families
of Japanese ancestry imprisoned at Topaz Camp, in Utah, during
World War II. Miss Yamauchi, a teacher at Mountain View School, and
her third grade students discussed what was happening at school and
at home. She would write a summary of their experiences on a new
page in their class daily diary. Students would take turns
illustrating a page with pencil and crayon drawings. These pages
provide a window into the children’s perspectives and emotions
during this dark event in American history. Eleven chapters focus
on various aspects of the students’ daily life. Color pages from
the diary and numerous black-and-white historic photographs
complement the text. An epilogue, an author’s note, a glossary, an
editor’s note on terminology, a note on the photos, photo credits,
source notes, a selected bibliography, and an index are included.
In her editor’s note, Alyssa Mito Pusey, a fourth-generation
Japanese American, explains how she and the author worked carefully
together to make thoughtful word choices regarding the use of terms
such as internment or internment camp. VERDICT This well-researched
primary source provides a close look at the daily lives of Japanese
American children and their families who were forced out of their
homes during World War II. An illuminating addition to all library
shelves that challenges readers to think about how people can learn
from history and its reverberations.
—School Library Journal, starred review
A look into a third grade class’s daily diary while imprisoned. In
December 1941, one year after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, those of
Japanese ancestry, or Nikkei, living on the West Coast were torn
from their homes and sent to prison camps. By 1943, 8-year-old Mae
Yanagi and other Japanese American children were starting school in
Topaz Internment Camp in Utah. Mae’s third grade class started an
illustrated diary of their daily life at camp. Diary entries
included details about positive things, like schoolwork, sports,
pets, and holidays. Often entries also mentioned injuries,
illnesses, and goodbyes experienced by the students and the other
captives. Quotes from prisoners of all ages are interlaced
throughout, allowing their voices due prominence. By highlighting
the children’s classroom diary, Tunnell gives today’s young readers
a primary source from the perspectives of their peers. Images of
diary pages fill in the gaps of the archival photos that too often
hid the injustice. One entry notes that several blocks lost their
running water; another records the loss of a roof to a storm. The
selections throughout carefully balance harsh experiences with
incredible resilience. An author’s note shares the heartwarming
story of how he was able to meet and interview many of the children
who wrote the diary; an editor’s note discusses the decision not to
use the terms internment camps or internees.
Informative, moving nonfiction that allows the Topaz detainees to
share their story.
—Kirkus Reviews
From March through August of 1943, Miss Yamauchi and her
third-grade students collaborated on a diary of happenings around
the neighborhood—the fenced and guarded Topaz encampment in Utah
where they and other West Coast Japanese immigrants and
Japanese-American citizens were, under Executive Order 9066, forced
to live. This diary, now housed in a Utah historical museum,
becomes an important referent for Tunnell’s heavily illustrated
introduction to children’s life at Topaz. Themed chapters such as
“Barracks, Mess Halls, and Latrines,” “School Days,” and “Take Me
Out to the Ball Game” highlight activities that spark reader
curiosity, but the book often covers events and practices outside
the diary’s narrow scope, and frequent references to author Yoshiko
Uchida (not one of the subject students) are unexplained. Diary
entries, illustrated by the children, are strongly appealing, but
with their collective, sentence-long observations, they are
difficult to coordinate with the multi-themed narrative, and it
takes time and plenty of inference to work out that Miss Yamauchi’s
tidy printing captured (and likely polished) her students’ remarks.
There’s much here to appreciate in terms of visual and textual
detail, but overall there’s a missed opportunity to let the
children’s own scattershot concerns and authentic, uninterpreted
voices take the lead. Copious end matter includes an author’s note
on Tunnell’s research and interview process, a glossary, a note on
terminology, photo information, source notes, a bibliography that
highlights youth resources, and an index.
—The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books
As a result of the bombing of Pearl Harbor and FDR's ensuing
Executive Order 9066, eight-year-old Mae Yanagi and her family were
uprooted from their home in Hayward, California, and forced to
relocate to Topaz, a so-called Japanese internment camp (see
appended note on terminology) in the desert of central Utah. Mae's
third-grade class kept a journal that year, and her journal is used
as a starting point to explore, in eleven chapters, what it was
like to live in Topaz, especially from a child's viewpoint. Tunnell
(The Children of Topaz) touches on such topics as holiday
observances, medical care, pets, recreation, and religious worship.
The reminiscences of Mae and her classmates are aptly woven in to
the narrative, and the resiliency of these children is inspiring.
Numerous black-and-white photographs as well as color reproductions
of the journal entries—there's something on nearly every page—break
up the text, while the ample back matter includes an enlightening
chapter-long author note, photo notes and credits, source notes, a
glossary, a selected bibliography, and an index.
—The Horn Book
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