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One Book, One Coast Supplemental Reading List April and May 2026 "One Book, One Coast" is a collaborative program uniting a wide network of West Coast library jurisdictions in a shared celebration of literacy, learning, community, and civil discourse. From April 1 through June 6, all participating libraries will read and discuss They Called US Enemy by George Takei. On May 31st join us for a live stream event of George Takei's author talk. Ask library staff about events, or visit mypcls.org. |
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They called us enemy
by George Takei
The iconic actor and activist presents a graphic memoir detailing his experiences as a child prisoner in the Japanese-American internment camps of World War II, reflecting on the hard choices his family made in the face of legalized racism. Original. Gr 10+
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It Rhymes with Takei
by George Takei
George Takei has shown the world many faces: actor, author, outspoken activist, helmsman of the starship Enterprise, living witness to the internment of Japanese Americans, and king of social media. But until October 27, 2005, there was always one piece missing--one face he did not show the world. There was one very intimate fact about George that he never shared--and it rhymes with Takei. Now, for the first time ever, George shares the full story of his life in the closet, his decision to come out as gay at the age of 68, and the way that moment transformed everything. ... From his earliest childhood crushes and youthful experiments in the rigidly conformist 1950s, to global fame as an actor and the terrible fear of exposure, to the watershed moment of speaking his truth and becoming one of the most high-profile gay men on the planet, [this book] offers a sweeping portrait of one iconic American navigating the tides of LGBTQ+ history--
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Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II
by Richard Reeves
A LOS ANGELES TIMES BESTSELLER - A NEW YORK TIMES BOOK REVIEW EDITOR'S CHOICE - Bestselling author Richard Reeves provides an authoritative account of the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese aliens during World War II Less than three months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and inflamed the nation, President Roosevelt signed an executive order declaring parts of four western states to be a war zone operating under military rule. The U.S. Army immediately began rounding up thousands of Japanese-Americans, sometimes giving them less than 24 hours to vacate their houses and farms. For the rest of the war, these victims of war hysteria were imprisoned in primitive camps. In Infamy, the story of this appalling chapter in American history is told more powerfully than ever before. Acclaimed historian Richard Reeves has interviewed survivors, read numerous private letters and memoirs, and combed through archives to deliver a sweeping narrative of this atrocity. Men we usually consider heroes-FDR, Earl Warren, Edward R. Murrow-were in this case villains, but we also learn of many Americans who took great risks to defend the rights of the internees. Most especially, we hear the poignant stories of those who spent years in war relocation camps, many of whom suffered this terrible injustice with remarkable grace. Racism, greed, xenophobia, and a thirst for revenge: a dark strand in the American character underlies this story of one of the most shameful episodes in our history. But by recovering the past, Infamy has given voice to those who ultimately helped the nation better understand the true meaning of patriotism.
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Resistance at Tule LakeThe long-suppressed story of 12,000 Japanese Americans who dared to resist the US government's program of mass incarceration during World War II.
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Beneath the Wide Silk Sky
by Emily Inouye Huey
With the recent death of her mother and the possibility of her family losing their farm, Samantha Sakamoto does not have space in her life for dreams, but when faced with prejudice and violence in her Washington State community after Pearl Harbor, she is determined to use her photography to document the bigotry around her.
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Kiyo Sato: From a WWII Japanese Internment Camp to a Life of Service
by Connie Goldsmith
Released to coincide with the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, this title revisits a dark period in American history through the eyes of Kiyo Sato as her family is detained in a Japanese internment camp. Confronting timely issues of racial discrimination and prejudice, this biography tells a nonetheless hopeful story about Sato's commitment to serving others.
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Together in Manzanar: The True Story of a Japanese Jewish Family in an American Concentration Camp
by Tracy Slater
A World War II homefront action that many Americans would like to forget. -- Kirkus Reviews This cinematic and propulsive family saga casts a riveting spotlight on an ignominious episode in U.S. history. -- Publishers Weekly On a late March morning in the spring of 1942, Elaine Yoneda awoke to a series of terrible choices: between her family and freedom, her country and conscience, and her son and daughter. She was the child of Russian Jewish immigrants and the wife of a Japanese American man. On this war-torn morning, she was also a mother desperate to keep her young mixed-race son from being sent to a US concentration camp. Manzanar, near Death Valley, was one of ten detention centers where our government would eventually imprison every person of Japanese descent along the West Coast--alien and citizen, old and young, healthy and sick--or, in the words of one official, anyone with even one drop of Japanese blood. Elaine's husband Karl was already in Manzanar, but he planned to enlist as soon as the US Army would take him. The Yonedas were prominent labor and antifascist activists, and Karl was committed to fighting for what they had long cherished: equality, freedom, and democracy. Yet when Karl went to war, their son Tommy, three years old and chronically ill, would be left alone in Manzanar--unless Elaine convinced the US government to imprison her as well. The consequences of Elaine's choice did not end there: if she somehow found a way to force herself behind barbed wire with her husband and son, she would leave behind her white daughter from a previous marriage. Together in Manzanar tells the story of these painful choices and conflicting loyalties, the upheaval and violence that followed, and the Yonedas' quest to survive with their children's lives intact and their family safe and whole.
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Hotel on the corner of bitter and sweet
by Jamie Ford
When artifacts from Japanese families sent to internment camps during World War II are uncovered during renovations at a Seattle hotel, Henry Lee embarks on a quest that leads to memories of growing up Chinese in a city rife with anti-Japanese sentiment
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Midnight in Broad Daylight: A Japanese American Family Caught Between Two Worlds
by Pamela Rotner Sakamoto
After their father's death, Harry, Frank, and Pierce Fukuhara-all born and raised in the Pacific Northwest-moved to Hiroshima, their mother's ancestral home. Eager to go back to his own land-America-Harry returned in the late 1930s. Then came Pearl Harbor. Despite being sent to an internment camp, Harry dutifully volunteered to serve his country. Back in Hiroshima, his brothers Frank and Pierce became soldiers in the Japanese Imperial Army. As the war raged on, Harry, one of the finest bilingual interpreters in the United States Army, island-hopped across the Pacific, moving ever closer to the enemy and to his younger brothers. But before the Fukuharas would have to face each other in battle, the U.S. detonated the atomic bomb over Hiroshima, gravely injuring tens of thousands of civilians, including members of their family. Alternating between the American and Japanese perspectives, Midnight in Broad Daylight captures the uncertainty and intensity of those charged with the fighting and provides a fresh look at the dropping of the first atomic bomb.
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This Time Will Be Different
by Misa Sugiura
A Kirkus Reviews Best Book * A 2020 YALSA Best Fiction for Young Adults SelectionFor fans of Jenny Han, Morgan Matson, and Sandhya Menon, critically acclaimed author Misa Sugiura delivers a richly crafted contemporary YA novel about family, community, and the importance of writing your own history.The author of the Asian Pacific American Award-winning It's Not Like It's a Secret is back with another smartly drawn coming-of-age novel that weaves riveting family drama, surprising humor, and delightful romance into a story that will draw you in from the very first page.Katsuyamas never quit--but seventeen-year-old CJ doesn't even know where to start. She's never lived up to her mom's type A ambition, and she's perfectly happy just helping her aunt, Hannah, at their family's flower shop.She doesn't buy into Hannah's romantic ideas about flowers and their hidden meanings, but when it comes to arranging the perfect bouquet, CJ discovers a knack she never knew she had. A skill she might even be proud of. Then her mom decides to sell the shop--to the family who swindled CJ's grandparents when thousands of Japanese Americans were sent to internment camps during WWII. Soon a rift threatens to splinter CJ's family, friends, and their entire Northern California community; and for the first time, CJ has found something she wants to fight for.Writing Your Own History: CJ must confront her family's painful past--and her mother's ambition--to save the flower shop that represents their legacy.High School Activism: When history threatens to repeat itself, CJ discovers that fighting for what's right means taking a stand in her community and finding allies in unexpected places.A Sweet Flower Shop Romance: Amidst family turmoil and late-night bouquet arranging, a charming new apprentice might be exactly what CJ needs... if she can get over her crush on the most popular guy in school.The Language of Flowers: Discover a world where every bouquet tells a story, and the right combination of flowers has the power to change hearts and minds.
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Internment: Japanese Americans in World War II
by Ruth Bjorklund
When the Empire of Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, racial stereotypes escalated into fear of the Japanese immigrants that flew in the face of facts. This led to the rounding up and internment of Japanese Americans is one of the most unfortunate incidents in the history of the United States. This book details the history of Asian immigration to the US, and how cultural differences and economic envy developed into blatant discrimination.
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A Place to Belong
by Cynthia Kadohata
A Kirkus Reviews Best Middle Grade Book of 2019 A Japanese-American family, reeling from their ill treatment in the Japanese internment camps, gives up their American citizenship to move back to Hiroshima, unaware of the devastation wreaked by the atomic bomb in this piercing look at the aftermath of World War II by Newbery Medalist Cynthia Kadohata. World War II has ended, but while America has won the war, twelve-year-old Hanako feels lost. To her, the world, and her world, seems irrevocably broken. America, the only home she's ever known, imprisoned then rejected her and her family--and thousands of other innocent Americans--because of their Japanese heritage, because Japan had bombed Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. Japan, the country they've been forced to move to, the country they hope will be the family's saving grace, where they were supposed to start new and better lives, is in shambles because America dropped bombs of their own--one on Hiroshima unlike any other in history. And Hanako's grandparents live in a small village just outside the ravaged city. The country is starving, the black markets run rampant, and countless orphans beg for food on the streets, but how can Hanako help them when there is not even enough food for her own brother? Hanako feels she could crack under the pressure, but just because something is broken doesn't mean it can't be fixed. Cracks can make room for gold, her grandfather explains when he tells her about the tradition of kintsukuroi--fixing broken objects with gold lacquer, making them stronger and more beautiful than ever. As she struggles to adjust to find her place in a new world, Hanako will find that the gold can come in many forms, and family may be hers.
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No-No Boy
by John Okada
No-No Boy tells the story of Ichiro Yamada, a fictional version of the real-life no-no boys. Yamada answered no twice in a compulsory government questionnaire as to whether he would serve in the armed forces and swear loyalty to the United States. Unwilling to pledge himself to the country that interned him and his family, Ichiro earns two years in prison and the hostility of his family and community when he returns home to Seattle--
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The Train to Crystal City: Fdr's Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America's Only Family Internment Camp During World War II
by Jan Jarboe Russell
The New York Times bestselling dramatic and never-before-told story of a secret FDR-approved American internment camp in Texas during World War II, a little known chapter of Japanese American internment and German American internment: A must-read....The Train to Crystal City is compelling, thought-provoking, and impossible to put down (The Minnesota Star Tribune). During World War II, trains delivered thousands of civilians from the United States and Latin America to Crystal City, Texas, as World War II civilian prisoners. The trains carried Japanese, German, and Italian immigrants and their American-born children, families labeled enemy aliens and used as bargaining chips in high-stakes diplomacy. The only family internment camp during the war, Crystal City was the center of a government prisoner exchange program called quiet passage. Hundreds of prisoners in Crystal City were exchanged for other more ostensibly important Americans--diplomats, businessmen, soldiers, and missionaries--behind enemy lines in Japan and Germany. In this quietly moving book (The Boston Globe), Jan Jarboe Russell focuses on two American-born teenage girls, uncovering the details of their years spent in the camp; the struggles of their fathers; their families' subsequent journeys to war-devastated Germany and Japan; and their years-long attempt to survive and return to the United States, transformed from incarcerated enemies to American loyalists. Their stories of day-to-day life at the camp, from the ten-foot high security fence to the armed guards, daily roll call, and censored mail, trace an immigrant experience shared by many immigrant families and have never been told. Combining big-picture World War II history with a little-known event in American history, The Train to Crystal City reveals the wartime hysteria against the Japanese and Germans in America, the secrets of FDR's tactics to rescue high-profile POWs in Germany and Japan, and above all, is about identity, allegiance, and home, and the difficulty of determining the loyalties that lie in individual human hearts (Texas Observer).
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Barbed Wire Between Us
by Mia Wenjen
Starred review from Kirkus Starred review from Publishers WeeklyKirkus: The Most Anticipated Children's Books of Spring 2026 A powerful poem about two girls separated by barbed wire and 80 years of historyBarbed Wire Between Us is a powerful reverso poem that tells two deeply resonant stories across time. It begins with a Japanese American girl sent to an internment camp in Oklahoma during World War II. Read in reverse, it reveals the journey of a Latina girl detained in the very same camp decades later, during the U.S. policy of migrant family separation.Harrowing and emotionally charged, this poetic narrative compels us to confront a haunting question: What have we truly learned in the past 80 years about how we treat the most vulnerable among us?With haunting symmetry and striking parallels, Barbed Wire Between Us is a moving meditation on justice, memory, and the echoes of history that still shape our present.
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The Japanese Lover
by Isabel Allende
Originally published as El Amante Japonaes in 2015 in Spain by Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial -- Verso title page.
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Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II
by Daniel James Brown
A NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLEROne of NPR's Books We Love of 2021Longlisted for the PEN/Jacqueline Bograd Weld Award for Biography Winner of the Christopher Award Masterly. An epic story of four Japanese-American families and their sons who volunteered for military service and displayed uncommon heroism... Propulsive and gripping, in part because of Mr. Brown's ability to make us care deeply about the fates of these individual soldiers...a page-turner. - Wall Street Journal From the #1 New York Times bestselling author of The Boys in the Boat, a gripping World War II saga of patriotism and resistance, focusing on four Japanese American men and their families, and the contributions and sacrifices that they made for the sake of the nation. In the days and months after Pearl Harbor, the lives of Japanese Americans across the continent and Hawaii were changed forever. In this unforgettable chronicle of war-time America and the battlefields of Europe, Daniel James Brown portrays the journey of Rudy Tokiwa, Fred Shiosaki, and Kats Miho, who volunteered for the 442nd Regimental Combat Team and were deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, where they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to submit to life in concentration camps on U.S. soil. Woven throughout is the chronicle of Gordon Hirabayashi, one of a cadre of patriotic resisters who stood up against their government in defense of their own rights. Whether fighting on battlefields or in courtrooms, these were Americans under unprecedented strain, doing what Americans do best--striving, resisting, pushing back, rising up, standing on principle, laying down their lives, and enduring.
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The Literature of Japanese American Incarceration
by Book Author
An indispensable, important anthology, edited with heart and sharp insight. This should be on the bookshelf of every American who loves the Constitution, and who is willing to fight to defend it. --Rachel Maddow An essential volume --Hua Hsu, The New Yorker The collective voice of Japanese Americans defined by a specific moment in time: the four years of World War II during which the US government expelled resident aliens and its own citizens from their homes and imprisoned 125,000 of them in American concentration camps, based solely upon the race they shared with a wartime enemy. A Penguin Classic This anthology presents a new vision that recovers and reframes the literature produced by the people targeted by the actions of President Franklin D. Roosevelt and Congress to deny Americans of Japanese ancestry any individual hearings or other due process after the Japanese attack at Pearl Harbor. From nearly seventy selections of fiction, poetry, essays, memoirs, and letters emerges a shared story of the struggle to retain personal integrity in the face of increasing dehumanization - all anchored by the key government documents that incite the action. The selections favor the pointed over the poignant, and the unknown over the familiar, with several new translations among previously unseen works that have been long overlooked on the shelf, buried in the archives, or languished unread in the Japanese language. The writings are presented chronologically so that readers can trace the continuum of events as the incarcerees experienced it. The contributors span incarcerees, their children born in or soon after the camps, and their descendants who reflect on the long-term consequences of mass incarceration for themselves and the nation. Many of the voices are those of protest. Some are those of accommodation. All are authentic. Together they form an epic narrative with a singular vision of America's past, one with disturbing resonances with the American present.
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American Sutra: A Story of Faith and Freedom in the Second World War
by Duncan Ryūken Williams
Duncan Ryken Williams reveals the little-known story of how, in the darkest hours of World War II when Japanese Americans were stripped of their homes and imprisoned in camps, a community of Buddhists launched one of the most inspiring defenses of religious freedom in our nation's history, insisting that they could be both Buddhist and American.
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Evergreen
by Naomi Hirahara
Los Angeles, 1946: It's been two years since Aki Ito and her family were released from Manzanar detention center and resettled in Chicago with other Japanese Americans. Now the Itos have finally been allowed to return home to California--but nothing is as they left it. The entire Japanese American community is starting from scratch, with thousands of people living in dismal refugee camps while they struggle to find new houses and jobs in over-crowded Los Angeles. Aki is working as a nurse's aide at the Japanese Hospital in Boyle Heights when an elderly Issei man is admitted with suspicious injuries. When she seeks out his son, she is shocked to recognize her husband's best friend, Babe Watanabe. Could Babe be guilty of elder abuse? Only a few days later, Little Tokyo is rocked by a murder at the low-income hotel where the Watanabes have been staying. When the cops start sniffing around Aki's home, she begins to worry that the violence tearing through her community might threaten her family. What secrets have the Watanabes been hiding, and can Aki protect her husband from getting tangled up in their mess?--]cProvided by publisher.
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The Eagles of Heart Mountain: A True Story of Football, Incarceration, and Resistance in World War II America
by Bradford Pearson
One of Ten Best History Books of 2021. --Smithsonian Magazine For fans of The Boys in the Boat and The Storm on Our Shores, this impeccably researched, deeply moving, never-before-told tale that ultimately stands as a testament to the resilience of the human spirit (Garrett M. Graff, New York Times bestselling author) about a World War II incarceration camp in Wyoming and its extraordinary high school football team. In the spring of 1942, the United States government forced 120,000 Japanese Americans from their homes in California, Oregon, Washington, and Arizona and sent them to incarceration camps across the West. Nearly 14,000 of them landed on the outskirts of Cody, Wyoming, at the base of Heart Mountain. Behind barbed wire fences, they faced racism, cruelty, and frozen winters. Trying to recreate comforts from home, they established Buddhist temples and sumo wrestling pits. Kabuki performances drew hundreds of spectators--yet there was little hope. That is, until the fall of 1943, when the camp's high school football team, the Eagles, started its first season and finished it undefeated, crushing the competition from nearby, predominantly white high schools. Amid all this excitement, American politics continued to disrupt their lives as the federal government drafted men from the camps for the front lines--including some of the Eagles. As the team's second season kicked off, the young men faced a choice to either join the Army or resist the draft. Teammates were divided, and some were jailed for their decisions. The Eagles of Heart Mountain honors the resilience of extraordinary heroes and the power of sports in a timely and utterly absorbing account of a country losing its moral way, and a group of its young citizens who never did (Evan Ratliff, author of The Mastermind).
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Days of Infamy: How a Century of Bigotry Led to Japanese American Internment (Scholastic Focus)
by Lawrence Goldstone
In another unrelenting look at the iniquities of the American justice system, Lawrence Goldstone, acclaimed author of Unpunished Murder, Stolen Justice, and Separate No More, examines the history of racism against Japanese Americans, exploring the territory of citizenship and touching on fears of non-white immigration to the US -- with hauntingly contemporary echoes.On December 7, 1941 -- a date which will live in infamy -- the Japanese navy launched an attack on the American military bases at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii. The next day, President Franklin Roosevelt declared war on Japan, and the US Army officially entered the Second World War.Three years later, on December 18, 1944, President Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066, which enabled the Secretary of War to enforce a mass deportation of more than 100,000 Americans to what government officials themselves called concentration camps. None of these citizens had been accused of a real crime. All of them were torn from their homes, jobs, schools, and communities, and deposited in tawdry, makeshift housing behind barbed wire, solely for the crime of being of Japanese descent. President Roosevelt declared this community alien, -- whether they were citizens or not, native-born or not -- accusing them of being potential spies and saboteurs for Japan who deserved to have their Constitutional rights stripped away. In doing so, the president set in motion another date which would live in infamy, the day when the US joined the ranks of those Fascist nations that had forcibly deported innocents solely on the basis of the circumstance of their birth.In 1944 the US Supreme Court ruled, in Korematsu v. United States, that the forcible deportation and detention of Japanese Americans on the basis of race was a military necessity. Today it is widely considered one of the worst Supreme Court decisions of all time. But Korematsu was not an isolated event. In fact, the Court's racist ruling was the result of a deep-seated anti-Japanese, anti-Asian sentiment running all the way back to the California Gold Rush of the mid-1800s. Starting from this pivotal moment, Constitutional law scholar Lawrence Goldstone will take young readers through the key events of the 19th and 20th centuries leading up to the fundamental injustice of Japanese American internment. Tracing the history of Japanese immigration to America and the growing fear whites had of losing power, Goldstone will raise deeply resonant questions of what makes an American an American, and what it means for the Supreme Court to stand as the people's branch of government.
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In Defense of Our Neighbors: The Walt and Milly Woodward Story
by Mary Woodward
At the start of WWII, the Seattle suburb of Bainbridge Island was 10% Japanese-American, an ethnic community fully integrated into a small town way of life. Walt and Milly Woodward, publishers of the island's community newspaper, fought the forced internment of their neighbors, and helped the island community grapple with their exile. Mary Woodward tells her parents' story, fully illustrated with period photographs and documents. This brave, principled couple remain heroes to the Japanese-American community the story of their fight helps us comprehend how precious our civil liberties are, and how easily they can be lost.
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This Light Between Us: A Novel of World War II
by Andrew Fukuda
In 1935, ten-year-old Alex Maki of Bainbridge Island, Washington, is horrified to discover that his new pen pal, Charlie Lâevy of Paris, France, is a girl, but in spite of his initial reluctance, their letters continue over the years and they fight for their friendship even as Charlie endures the Nazi occupation and Alex leaves his family in an internment camp and joins the Army.
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Imprisoned: The Betrayal of Japanese Americans During World War II
by Martin W. Sandler
While Americans fought for freedom and democracy abroad, fear and suspicion towards Japanese Americans swept the country after Japan's sneak attack on Pearl Harbor. Culling information from extensive, previously unpublished interviews and oral histories with Japanese American survivors of internment camps, Martin W. Sandler gives an in-depth account of their lives before, during their imprisonment, and after their release. Bringing readers inside life in the internment camps and explaining how a country that is built on the ideals of freedom for all could have such a dark mark on its history, this in-depth look at a troubling period of American history sheds light on the prejudices in today's world and provides the historical context we need to prevent similar abuses of power.
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The War Outside
by Monica Hesse
From the bestselling and award-winning author of Girl in the Blue Coat, comes an extraordinary novel of conviction, friendship, and betrayal, when two teenage girls meet in an American internment camp during WWII. It's 1944, and World War II is raging across Europe and the Pacific. The war seemed far away from Margot in Iowa and Haruko in Colorado--until they were uprooted to dusty Texas, all because of the places their parents once called home: Germany and Japan. Margot and Haruko meet at the high school in Crystal City, a family internment camp for those accused of colluding with the enemy. The teens discover that they are polar opposites in so many ways, except for one that seems to override all the others: the camp is changing them, day by day and piece by piece. Haruko finds herself consumed by fear for her soldier brother and distrust of her father, who she knows is keeping something from her. And Margot is doing everything she can to keep her family whole as her mother's health deteriorates and her rational, patriotic father becomes a man who distrusts America and fraternizes with Nazis. With everything around them falling apart, Haruko and Margot find solace in their growing, secret friendship. But in a prison the government has deemed full of spies, can they trust anyone--even each other?
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The Perfect Sound: A Memoir in Stereo
by Garrett Hongo
A poet's audio obsession, from collecting his earliest vinyl to his quest for the ideal vacuum tubes. A captivating book that ingeniously mixes personal memoir with cultural history and offers us an indispensable guide for the search of acoustic truth (Yunte Huang, author of Charlie Chan). Garrett Hongo's passion for audio dates back to the Empire 398 turntable his father paired with a Dynakit tube amplifier in their modest tract home in Los Angeles in the early 1960s. But his adult quest begins in the CD-changer era, as he seeks out speakers and amps both powerful and refined enough to honor the top notes of the greatest opera sopranos. In recounting this search, he describes a journey of identity where meaning, fulfillment, and even liberation were often most available to him through music and its astonishingly varied delivery systems. Hongo writes about the sound of surf being his first music as a kid in Hawai'i, about doo-wop and soul reaching out to him while growing up among Black and Asian classmates in L.A., about Rilke and Joni Mitchell as the twin poets of his adolescence, and about feeling the pulse of John Coltrane's jazz and the rhythmic chords of Billy Joel's piano from his car radio while driving the freeways as a young man trying to become a poet. Journeying further, he visits devoted collectors of decades-old audio gear as well as designers of the latest tube equipment, listens to sublime arias performed at La Scala, hears a ghostly lute at the grave of English Romantic poet John Keats in Rome, drinks in wisdom from blues musicians and a diversity of poetic elders while turning his ear toward the memory-rich strains of the music that has shaped him: Hawaiian steel guitar and canefield songs; Bach and the Band; Mingus, Puccini, and Duke Ellington. And in the decades-long process of perfecting his stereo setup, Hongo also discovers his own now-celebrated poetic voice.
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We Are Not Strangers: A Graphic Novel
by Josh Tuininga
We Are Not Strangers explores a unique situation of Japanese and Jewish Americans living side by side in a country at war. Marco Calvo always knew his grandfather, affectionately called Papoo, was a good man. After all, he was named for him. A first-generation Jewish immigrant, Papoo was hardworking, smart, and caring. When Papoo peacefully passes away, Marco expects the funeral to be simple. However, he is caught off guard by something unusual. Among his close family and friends are mourners he doesn't recognize--Japanese American families--and no one is quite sure who they are or why they are at the service. How did these strangers know his grandfather so well?
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Pierce County Library System
3005 112th St. E, Tacoma, Washington 98446
253-548-3300mypcls.org |
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