A moving debut middle-grade novel about a girl whose family is
relocated to a Japanese internment camp during World War II--and the dog
she has to leave behind.
Ten-year-old Manami did not realize how peaceful her family's life on
Bainbridge Island was until the day it all changed. It's 1942, after the
attack on Pearl Harbor, and Manami and her family are Japanese American,
which means that the government says they must leave their home by the
sea and join other Japanese Americans at a prison camp in the desert.
Manami is sad to go, but even worse is that they are going to have to
give her and her grandfather's dog, Yujiin, to a neighbor to take care
of. Manami decides to sneak Yujiin under her coat and gets as far as the
mainland before she is caught and forced to abandon Yujiin. She and her
grandfather are devastated, but Manami clings to the hope that somehow
Yujiin will find his way to the camp and make her family whole again. It
isn't until she finds a way to let go of her guilt that Manami can
reclaim the piece of herself that she left behind and accept all that
has happened to her family.
*
Paper Wishes* by Lois Sepahban is a heartrending middle-grade novel and
piece of historical fiction set during World War II about love, longing,
and a girl who finally finds her voice.
"It's a novel that stays, bravely, in that place of pain, making clear
that scars will be left behind not only for the children whose families
were incarcerated, but also for the generations that follow. And yet,
although the tone is sober and sad, it's also a -novel in which a mute
child finds her voice, -at last." --The New York Times
