This month's book reviews

After experiencing the attack at Pearl Harbor, a boy is moved to California

Adam Pelko grew up in Hawaii, where his naval officer father was stationed on the USS Arizona. Early one Sunday morning, while fishing in the harbor with some friends, Adam experiences the bombing attack by Japanese planes. He sees his father's ship being sunk with the loss of 1000 men on board, including his dad. Along with other families of servicemen, Adam, his mother, and his little sister are evacuated to California.

The family has a difficult time settling in California. Along with their grief, they have to deal with finding some place to stay. The two kids enroll in new schools. Their mother, in order to make ends meet, takes a job in a defense factory. Since California is on the Pacific coast, everybody fears the Japanese may bomb there or even invade the west coast of the U.S.

Adam receives a letter from Davi Mari, his best friend from Hawaii. Davi was born in Hawaii, but his parents had moved there from Japan. He reports that his father has been arrested by the FBI and placed in a local country club, which has been turned into a prison. It seems that even Japanese who are loyal Americans are being forced into internment camps.

Later, Davi writes Adam again and asks him to try to contact an uncle from the Mari family who will know how to contact the father. Davi's father had been shipped to a camp in California and Davi wants Adam to try to get him a letter from the family. Adam promises to deliver the letter to the uncle, but, at the time, does not realize how difficult it will be to keep his promise.

Adam has to disobey his mother as he tries to track down news of Davi's family. To his dismay, he finds that all the Japanese in California, including men, women, and children, have been rounded up by the US army and placed in internment camps. For a teen-aged boy to try to contact imprisoned Japanese is a dangerous thing to do, even if the boy can find out just where his friend's family is kept prisoner.

In following Adam on his quest to keep a promise made to his friend, a young reader finds out about conditions early in World War II on America's west coast. The reader also finds that Adam is a true friend and is mature enough even in wartime to distinguish between those Japanese who bombed his father's ship and those who were loyal Americans.

 

A slave girl confronts her own freedom
at the end of the Civil War

Eulinda is a slave in Georgia - a house slave - which means she works in the house of her owners instead of out in the cotton fields. It is 1864 and it is clear the South is losing the war and it is just a matter of time until the slaves will all be freed. Eulinda knows she is the daughter of the plantation owner by a slave mother. Her father has never acknowledged her as his daughter, however, and his new wife - his second wife - treats her very poorly. The wife is especially harsh on her because Eulinda, unlike the other slaves, had been taught to read and write.

Eulinda's life is further complicated by the fact that her home plantation is very near Andersonville Prison, where captured Union soldiers were being kept under horrible conditions. Eulinda's brother, Neddy, had run away when he was sixteen to join up with the Union Army. After he ran away, it was discovered that a valuable diamond ring was missing from the plantation owner. In a letter to Eulinda, Neddy had admitted to stealing the ring so that it could be sold to help finance a trip west for them after the war was over. To add even more to the complications in Eulinda's life, she finds out that Neddy has been captured and is a prisoner in Andersonville.

Eulinda tries to contact Neddy in the prison camp, but is unable to do so. When the war finally ends, she finds out that Neddy had died in the camp, just as thousands of others had perished. Because she is one of the few freed slaves who can write, Eulinda is able to get work in the now abandoned camp and help an officer who is trying to identify the bodies of all the young soldiers buried in graves inside Andersonville. The hope is that their families can be notified and informed where their sons, brothers, and husbands are buried. The camp was to be turned into a monument for all the young soldiers who died there. Clara Barton, the famous nurse who served throughout the war, arrived to help out in the immense job.

Eulinda becomes Clara Barton's assistant and takes on the job of lettering signs to identify the graves of the soldiers as they are reburied. Will Eulinda be able to find Neddy's body? Will he still have the ring with him? What will Eulinda do with the ring even if she discovers it? What kind of new life can a teenaged former slave hope for with her new-found freedom?