United States (as well as in Japan), which contributed to President Franklin
Roosevelt’s decision to send an estimated 120,000 people of Japanese descent
into concentration camps in WWII.
Nagai, Mariko.
Dust of Eden.
Park Ridge, IL: Albert Whitman & Company, 2018.
Told in poignant verse, this middle grade novel tells the story of thirteen-year-old
Mina Masako Tagawa and her Japanese American family, who were sent from
their home in Seattle to the Minidoka internment camp in Idaho in 1942.
Reeves, Richard.
Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in
World War II.
New York: Picador, 2015.
This powerful book includes a discussion of politics, interviews, letters,
newspapers, and archival photos, which together tell the story of internment.
Sandler, Martin W.
Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans during WWII.
London: Walker Books for Young Readers, 2013.
Sandler offers numerous interviews with internment camp survivors and tells of
their lives before, during, and after incarceration. Some of the interviews include
the heroes of the all-Nisei 442nd Regimental Combat Team in World War II and
the Nisei translators whose work remained secret until the 1970s. Kiyo Sato had
a brother in each of those services.
Stelson, Caren.
Sachiko: A Nagasaki Bomb Survivor’s Story.
Minneapolis: Carolrhoda
Books, 2016.
This award-winning book for young readers tells the true story of six-year-old
Sachiko Yasui, who survived the atomic bombing of Nagasaki in 1945. Most
of Sachiko’s family died of radiation-related illnesses. She survived, devoting
much of her later adult life to speaking about her experience of the bombing and
advocating for peace, especially for children.
Takei, George, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott.
They Called Us Enemy.
Illustrated by
Harmony Becker. Marietta, GA: Top Shelf, 2019.
George Takei (formerly an actor on television’s
Star Trek
series) and his family
were part of the tens of thousands of Japanese Americans incarcerated in a camp
during World War II. This best-selling graphic novel tells Takei’s firsthand
account of his years behind barbed wire and the joys and terrors of growing up
under legalized racism.
Uchida, Yoshiko.
Journey to Topaz.
New York: Scribner, 1971.
This classic novel tells of eleven-year-old Yuki and her family, sent to the
internment center in Topaz, Utah. The book has been republished several
times, and the latest 1984 edition includes a new prologue by the author. In
the prologue, Uchida expresses her hope that young Americans will realize the
injustice of the incarceration and will not permit such an event to occur again.
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