Gaijin: American Prisoner of War

Gr 5–8—In 1941, biracial Koji and his mother hear about the attacks on Pearl Harbor from their home in San Francisco. As tensions escalate, Mrs. Miyamoto volunteers to accompany her son to the Japanese relocation camp, where Koji has to navigate the hostile environment and the social pressures of the other teenage boys. Throughout all this, his father is absent, and Koji worries if he is the traitor the U.S. government suspects him to be. The artwork is lovely, with gestural lines and colors that are warm and redolent of age and memory, and which bridge caricature and realism. However, the dialogue and word balloons lack a similar finesse, as they are garishly large and convey little subtlety of emotion. They make the protagonist seem loud and immature, and generally pitch the book younger than his age. This is problematic, as he is old enough to worry about his mother, and harbors suspicions that she is having affairs for favorable treatment in the camp—issues somewhat beyond the scope of a children's book. Emotions at the times ran high, and the issues depicted are complex; this book doesn't quite capture that complexity.—Benjamin Russell, Belmont High School, NH