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Tunnell, Michael O.

Desert Diary: Japanese American Kids Behind Barbed Wire

144 pp. | Charlesbridge | October, 2020 | Trade ISBN 978-1-58089-789-1 $19.99 | Ebook ISBN 978-1-63289-613-1 $8.99
(2) 4-6 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 the 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 into 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's note, photo notes and credits, source notes, a glossary, a selected bibliography, and an index.
Reviewer: Jonathan Hunt | Horn Book Magazine Issue: November, 2020

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