We Are Not Free

Starred review from April 1, 2020

Gr 7 Up-Fourteen teens form a bond growing up together in California. They go to school, work hard to be good kids in their community, and try their best to find happiness in various hobbies. American-born, they are of Japanese descent, and surrounded by people who do not trust their right to be in the U.S. World War II turns their already strained lives upside down. Taken and forced into desolate internment camps, these young kids must rally together as racism threatens to tear them apart. This novel evokes powerful emotions by using a variety of well-researched elements to tell the teens' stories, creating a thorough picture of their thoughts and feelings through poetry, diary-style entries, and drawings. As Chee mentions in the author's note, her family experienced the impact of being marked as "other" and therefore "dangerous," and were forcibly uprooted from their homes and incarcerated in internment camps. The novel may be fiction, but it will be hard for readers not to fall deep into the harsh realities these teens face. The writing is engaging and emotionally charged, allowing the readers to connect with each character. VERDICT Chee's words are a lot to take in, but necessary and beautiful all the same. This remarkable book deserves to be in any library collection.-DeHanza Kwong, Butte Public Library, MT

Copyright 2020 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from April 1, 2020
Grades 8-12 *Starred Review* Chee is a master storyteller, as the Reader trilogy aptly demonstrates. Here, she uses her own San Francisco-based Japanese American family's history to inform a blazing and timely indictment of the incarceration of Japanese Americans during WWII. Her passion and personal involvement combine with her storytelling talents to create a remarkable and deeply moving account of the incarceration. The interconnected stories of 14 very different teenage individuals beautifully demonstrate the disintegration of family life in the camps, a phenomenon often addressed in nonfiction accounts but not so well depicted in fiction?until now. In a culture where the influence of parents and grandparents was all-important, life behind barbed wire destroyed that dynamic, with peer influence and friendships taking precedence. It's as if S. E. Hinton's The Outsiders met Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston's Farewell to Manzanar. Despite the large cast, Chee's clear chapter headings, vivid characterizations, and lively portrayals of very diverse characters enable readers to easily identify the nonstereotyped teens. Chee also incorporates many different media types: telegrams, newspapers, postcards, drawings, and maps all help to drive and deepen the story. A short but excellent bibliography and thoughtful author's notes round out what should become required curriculum reading on a shameful and relevant chapter in U.S. history.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2020, American Library Association.)

Starred review from July 6, 2020
Spanning three years, from March 1942 to March 1945, Chee’s accomplished novel about America’s treatment of Japanese Americans is told by 14 Nisei teenagers who have grown up together in San Francisco’s Japantown. The book traces their varied trajectories, beginning with their initial deportation to a nearby incarceration camp, then a second move to the more developed compound of Topaz City, Utah, where prisoners are forced to pledge loyalty to the U.S. or to Japan through a questionnaire, and “No-Nos”—those who refuse U.S. allegiance and military service—are deported to yet another camp. Inspired by Chee’s family history, the book powerfully depicts, as an author’s note states, “a mere fraction of what this generation went through.” Varying between first-, second-, and third-person narration; letters and verse; and even one chapter told by “all of us,” each interconnected story has a distinct voice (a provided “Character Registry” is useful for keeping track of the many characters and relationships). The individual tales are well crafted and emotionally compelling, and they resolve into an elegant arc. Ambitious in scope and complexity, this is an essential contribution to the understanding of the wide-ranging experiences impacting people of Japanese ancestry in the U.S. during WWII. Ages 12–up. Agent: Barbara Poelle, Irene Goodman Agency.

July 1, 2020
Chee follows up her successful fantasy trilogy (The Reader and sequels) with this very different work of historical fiction, drawing on her personal family and cultural history for a story of World War II. Beginning in March 1942, three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, fourteen young people -- all but one from San Francisco's Japantown -- chronicle, in interlinked stories, their lives over the course of the next three years. Their first-person, present-tense narratives depict a multiplicity of thoughts, feelings, and experiences, particularly regarding the unjust treatment of Japanese American citizens before, during, and after incarceration in internment camps. The result is slightly disorienting as characters come and go, but the overall effect is nuanced and kaleidoscopic. Gaman is a Japanese word for endurance, a dignified response to adversity; it's a characteristic most of these young adults exhibit in one form or another: "The ability to hold your pain and bitterness inside you and not let them destroy you. To make something beautiful through your anger, or with your anger, and neither erase it nor let it define you. To suffer. And to rage. And to persevere." Various graphic elements connect the story to its historical period (drawings, photographs, maps, postcards, telegrams, and newspaper articles), while the author's note grounds it in Chee's extensive research and family experience.

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

September 1, 2020
Chee follows up her successful fantasy trilogy (The Reader and sequels) with this very different work of historical fiction, drawing on her personal family and cultural history for a story of World War II. Beginning in March 1942, three months after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, fourteen young people -- all but one from San Francisco's Japantown -- chronicle, in interlinked stories, their lives over the course of the next three years. Their first-person, present-tense narratives depict a multiplicity of thoughts, feelings, and experiences, particularly regarding the unjust treatment of Japanese American citizens before, during, and after incarceration in internment camps. The result is slightly disorienting as characters come and go, but the overall effect is nuanced and kaleidoscopic. Gaman is a Japanese word for endurance, a dignified response to adversity; it's a characteristic most of these young adults exhibit in one form or another: "The ability to hold your pain and bitterness inside you and not let them destroy you. To make something beautiful through your anger, or with your anger, and neither erase it nor let it define you. To suffer. And to rage. And to persevere." Various graphic elements connect the story to its historical period (drawings, photographs, maps, postcards, telegrams, and newspaper articles), while the author's note grounds it in Chee's extensive research and family experience. Jonathan Hunt

(Copyright 2020 by The Horn Book, Incorporated, Boston. All rights reserved.)

Starred review from July 15, 2020
Young Japanese Americans tell of life during World War II. In San Francisco's Japantown, a group of teens has grown up together and become like family. But life in America after the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor is dangerous for them. They and their families are taken to the Topaz incarceration camp in Utah, where the harsh conditions and injustices they experience turn their worlds upside down. They draw some comfort in being together--however, a government questionnaire causes rifts: Loyalties are questioned, lines are drawn, and anger spills over, threatening to destroy the bonds that once held them together. The teens are forced apart, some enlisting in the 442nd Regimental Combat Team while the No-Nos (those who refuse to serve in the U.S. military and swear allegiance solely to the U.S. government) are relocated to the Tule Lake camp, and others, whose families passed background checks, are allowed to resettle in locations around the country. This is a compelling and transformative story of a tragic period in American history. Written from the 14 young people's intertwining points of view, each character fills in a segment of time between 1942 and 1945. The styles vary, including both first- and second-person narration as well as verse and letters. Each voice is powerful, evoking raw emotions of fear, anger, resentment, uncertainty, grief, pride, and love. Historical photographs and documents enhance the text. An unforgettable must-read. (author's note, further reading, image credits) (Historical fiction. 13-18)

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