It Finds A Way

Stepping into one is like coming home.  It is as if all the words on all the pages are wrapping around you in a comforting and welcoming hug.  Their representation of living beings, places, and things, real and imagined, form infinite possibilities and ultimately hope.  Hope is potent.  

This is what a library does for many people.  For me, as a patron and as a professional librarian, libraries have always meant sanctuary in all its varied interpretations. Love In The Library (Candlewick Press, February 8, 2022) written by Maggie Tokuda-Hall with illustrations by Yas Imamura is a story of finding light in darkness.  It is the story of how a flicker can grow into a flame that burns for generations.

Tama did not like the desert.

She brushed the dust from her eyes as she walked to the library.

The barbed wire fences and guard towers cast long shadows over her path.

She always did her best not to look at the guards.

Tama was the camp's librarian because she enjoyed books.  As she approached the library, there was George holding a stack of books.  He waited for her to arrive every morning.

For a year Tama and George had been at the Minidoka camp, interned there for being Japanese American and previously residing along the western coast of the United States.  Minidoka was not the only camp but like all the other camps, the living  conditions were intolerable and the camps were completely wrong.

Tama, not knowing if or when she would leave the camp, felt trapped by the sameness of her days.  Her thoughts about this sameness filled her mind with unease and doubt.  Thankfully, she found solace in the library and in the presence of George.

One day Tama whispered her word for the worlds revealed in the pages of books and George questioned her out loud as he smiled.  She shushed him.  Tama tried, but she could not smile.  George asked her a question again, and Tama could not respond as tears welled in her eyes.  Then, Tama, asked George a question.  George did not smile, but Tama had her answer.  From that day forward the sameness for Tama, and for George, changed.

Based on the truth of her maternal grandparents' lives at Minidoka, Maggie Tokuda-Hall writes with the same music in her heart as a composer penning a symphony.  In this narrative Maggie Tokuda-Hall takes the symphony, supplying readers with the notes used to make the final piece.  Her word choices are intentional. They take us into the camp providing us with intimate details of the conditions there.  We are privy to the thoughts swirling in Tama's mind.  We are there in the moments when she and George converse.  Single recurring words provide powerful connections throughout the book.  Here is a passage.

"What's wrong?" George asked.

"Nothing.  Or everything," Tama said.  She did not need to tell him what she meant.

He knew.  Everyone in Minidoka knew.  "I try not to complain.  I know this isn't fair, but I

also know there is nothing to be done.  I try not to be afraid.  But I'm just so---so---"

It's like walking through a portal into history when you look at the open and matching dust jacket and book case.  On the right side, front, we see Tama and George, with his usual armload of books.  This is the world they make for themselves inside the walls of the library.  When we look through the window, their harsh reality is presented in the form of the barbed wire fence and manned guard tower.  To the left, on the back, is the building housing the library.  Behind it, the barbed wire fence stretches beyond our sight.  Several people are near the building.  Two are carrying books.  A third man is working in the yard.  This image is used within the book.

The opening and closing endpapers reflect the grim history faced by those forced into the camps.  Barbed wire fencing stretches from left to right across a rocky and sparsely vegetated land.  Behind this is a gray-green sky.  We are close to the fence as if standing in front of it.  On the title page are crumpled internment instructions and a single suitcase.  The suitcase depicting all they were allowed to bring. 

These illustrations by Yas Imamura rendered

in gouache and watercolor 

are both heartbreaking and healing.  Each captured scene, whether it is a double-page picture, a single-page loosely framed image, or a full-page illustration, places us in the world of Tama and George.  The varied perspectives enhance the emotional impact.

The body postures and facial expressions on the people mirror a range of moods.  Light and shadow are used superbly.  In one picture a ray of sunshine illuminates George as he sits at a library table with an open book.  George is the ray of sunshine in Tama's life.

One of my many favorite illustrations is a single-page picture.  It is as if we are looking down on the setting.  Most of the page is the surface of the library table.  On it are two open books.  A hand, Tama's hand, extends across the right side of the pages of the book closest to us.  Seated across from the book farthest from us is George.  We see his upper body, one arm resting on the table, and the other arm and hand as it reaches out to softly touch Tama's fingers.  This gesture is meaningful.  This image completely elevates and complements the written words.

Oh my goodness.  This book.  This book, Love In The Library written by Maggie Tokuda-Hall with artwork by Yas Imamura, is striking in every respect.  The text and images will take your breath away.  In an author's note on two concluding pages, including a picture of Tama and George, Maggie Tokuda-Hall talks about the story of her grandparents, internment camps and the cruelty of placing the Japanese Americans there.  In subsequent compelling paragraphs she addresses present day racism, the tradition of racism in America, and what we can do to fashion a better future.  I highly recommend this title for both your personal and professional collections.  

By following the link attached to their names, you can access the websites of Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Yas Imamura to learn more about them and their other work.  Maggie Takuda-Hall has accounts on Instagram and Twitter.  Yas Imamura has accounts on Instagram and Twitter.  At the publisher's website, you can download another author's note and a teacher's guide.  At Penguin Random House, you can view interior images.  Both creators are interviewed at We Need Diverse Books about this title.  They are outstanding interviews.  Author, reviewer, and blogger Julie Danielson highlights this title along with some interior illustrations at her site, Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast.

Maggie Tokuda-Hall discusses Love in the Library from Candlewick Press on Vimeo.

Left Behind

One had just turned twenty and the other was still nineteen when the bombing of Pearl Harbor took place on December 7, 1941.  The man would enter the army spending a portion of his service for an entire year on two of the inhabitable islands in the Aleutian chain.  The woman would remain home continuing to work in a secretarial position, joining the USO and selling enough war bonds to earn special recognition from the United States Treasury Department.  Their oral and written recollections, photographs and memorabilia informed me in a very personal way as to the effects this war had for those at home and those serving in the armed forces.

Carefully researched nonfiction, Barbed Wire Baseball, and historical fiction, Echo,  Dash and Duke, are a few examples of children's literature which built on the understanding given to me by my parents.  There are many stories making up the collective whole of an event as large as a world war in human history.  Paper Wishes (Margaret Ferguson Books, Farrar Straus Giroux, January 5, 2016) written by Lois Sepahban speaks to life of Japanese Americans held at the internment camp, Manzanar, located in California. 

MARCH

Grandfather says that a man should walk barefoot on the bare earth every day.  Mother says that a man can do so if he likes, but her daughter will wear shoes.  

Manami and her grandfather are spending time at the beach on and near their special rock on Bainbridge Island in Washington.  The family dog, most dear to Grandfather and Manami, Yujiin runs along the beach toward the duo.  At school that day as the rest of the students leave, the Japanese American children are asked by their teacher to stay.  She tells them this is their last day of school.  Manami is frightened and filled with questions.  

She and her family along with all the other families of Japanese descent on Bainbridge Island have to leave relinquishing their home, their belongings and their entire way of life.  The family endures medical checkups and is assigned a number and given tags to put on the one suitcase allowed per person.  Manami's older brother, Ron, and older sister, Keiko, are attending Earlham College in Indiana.  Plans have been made for the local pastor to care for Yujiin in their absence.  

On the day they leave Manami cannot bear to part with Yujiin.  She tucks him inside her coat to keep him close.  The dog is not detected on the ferry ride to the mainland.  As they are boarding the bus taking them to trains and then the camp, a solider stops Manami.  Yujiin is discovered, taken from her and left in a crate by a deeply saddened grandfather.  

Days, weeks and months pass in silence.  Ten-year-old Manami does not speak; deep grief and guilt fill her throat like the dust which is everywhere.   Life with her family and the other thousands of internees swirls around her as the community grows.  Always she watches and looks for Yujiin.  Always she hopes for a return to normal.  

After several months the arrival of her brother Ron causes subtle tension and shifts in old and new relationships.  His position as a teacher at the school and his intentions are the subject of scrutiny and misinterpretation. Big changes are coming to the Tanaka and Ishii family members.  What will Manami do this time?

Within the first few pages Lois Sepahban builds a connection between the reader and the characters.  We sense the coming differences in normal life with the mention of the war, the presence of the military and the children being told they can't attend school any more.  By revealing the circumstances of Yujiin becoming a member of the family, we are keenly aware of the dog's importance.  

Using Manami's voice to tell this story brings poignancy to the events.  We come to know each character through their responses to her and to each other.  Dialogue, her thoughts and actions capture a complete picture of their lives at this camp.  By relating simple but everyday moments we feel as though we are there with them.  

Dividing the chapters into the months spent at the camp helps us to understand the smaller portrait of this one family within the larger picture of Manzanar.  The matter-of-fact, realistic sentences overwhelm you with sadness except for the undercurrent of resilience like the carefully tended plants in Manami's mother's garden.  The introduction of Miss Rosalie as Manami's teacher adds more layers to the story.  When she gives Manami paper and pencils daily, in which to express herself, the child's talent and desires are shown to us.  It is particularly heartbreaking to watch her release a paper into the wind thirty-one times with special pictures and words, paper wishes.  Here are a couple of sample passages. 

I soon discover that if I crouch down low with my eyes next to the ground, I can pretend that the dirt looks like sand here.

If I stand tall with my feet bare, I can pretend the dirt feels like sand here.

But when I open my mouth to speak, the dirt no longer feels like sand.  It sticks to my lips and tongue like red mud.  It coats my throat so that I cannot speak.

I think this is what has happened to me

I wish the dirt would cloud my eyes too, so that I would not see this place that is and is not my home without Yujiin.

And then the rain comes.

Mother pulls us outside.  She holds my hands, spinning us around and around.  Others join in our rain dance.  The yard in front of the mess hall is a muddy swirl of people.

The rain does not drip or drop.  The rain pours.  Like the water pump.  Like the showers.

It pours until the laughing faces and twirling feet stop their happy dance.

It pours until Mother begins to frown.

"Hurry, children!" she says.  "We must save my plants."

We run to Mother's garden.  The water pours so fast that there is already a pond forming in the yard.

Mother touches her battered plants one by one.

The pouring rain has pounded them into the ground.  Fragile stems are broken.  Tiny leaves float free.

Mother kneels and pulls me to her, wrapping her arms around my waist.  She cries into my stomach. 

Paper Wishes written by Lois Sepahban brings vividly to life the past.  The weight of sadness for the people who spent years in those camps is profoundly felt.  It is an important book asking us to remember.  It is a book about many kinds of love.  This title has my highest recommendation.  An author's note at the end offers further explanations. (This post is based upon the reading of an advance reader's edition.)

To learn more about Lois Sepahban and her other books please follow the link attached to her name to access her website.  You can read an excerpt at the publisher's website.  Lois Sepahban is interviewed at Literary Rambles and the swanky seventeens.  You can find her on Twitter at @LoisSepahban

Update:  Lois Sepahban is interviewed by author Caroline Starr Rose on her blog, January 20, 2016.

Update:  Lois Sepahban is interviewed at The Horn Book Spring 2016 Publisher's Preview Five Questions for Lois Sepahban