Svetlana's Reads and Views

Name of Book: Journey to Topaz Author: Yoshiko Uchida ISBN: 0-916870-85-5 Publisher: Creative Arts Book Company Part of a Series: Journey Home sequel Type of book: WW2, young adult, Topaz camp, Japanese-Americans, Issei, Nisei, camp conditions, desert, 1941-1942 or 1943? Year it was published: 1971 Summary: Like any eleven-year-old, Yuki Sakane is looking forward to christmas when her peaceful world is suddenly shattered by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Father is taken by the FBI, and she, her mother and older brother, Ken, are uprooted from their home and shipped with thousands of West Coast Japanese Americans to the horse stalls of Tanforan Racetrack and then to the bleak desert concentration camp called Topaz. There Yuki and her new friends, Emi and her grandparents, face terrifying dust storms, new hardships and finally a terrible tragedy that rocks the entire camp. Disillusioned, Ken must make a heart-wrenching decision, and Yuki faces another painful separati...

Name of Book: Journey Home Author: Yoshiko Uchida ISBN: 0-689-71641-9 Publisher: Aladdin Paperbacks Type of book: 1940s, WWII, Internment camp, getting on with life, survivors, for young adults Year it was published: 1978 Summary: World War II is raging. Yuki and her Japanese-American family are forced from their home in California and imprisoned in a US concentration camp called Topaz. After months of unbearable life in Topaz, Yuki and her family are finally released. They are free, but are left with nothing. WIth nowhere to go, and no money to get there, the road to rebuilding their lives seems endless. But in the end, it is their unyielding faith and courage that guide them home, reunited and hopeful. Journey Home is an extraordinary story of one's family struggle to survive one of the most tragic episodes in US history. Characters: The story is told through Yuki's eyes. (Something interesting: Yuki means snow in Japanese.) The characters that do ...