Book review: Displacement by Kiku Hughes

    In this graphic novel, Kiku is transported back in time to1940's San Francisco - where her grandmother was a teenager. At the time, Japanese Americans faced a lot of racial discrimination in the United States. When the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in Hawaii, the U.S. government rounded up all Japanese-Americans on the West Coast, forced them to leave their homes, businesses and communities and moved them into camps in rural areas of the western United States.  It felt these legal immigrants and American citizens represented a potential threat to the U.S. because of their ancestral ties to Japan. Kiku's grandmother and her family are sent to one of these camps and Kiku ends up in the same camp. While there, Kiku experiences first hand what life was like for her grandmother and others who tried to make a life for themselves in a hostile environment.  

    Reading this historical fiction novel gives you insight into what life was like for the first and second generation Japanese Americans (check out the glossary at the back of the book for translations of the Japanese terms used in the story). Now 80 years later, Japanese Americans are still impacted by the camps. Many of those in the internment camps rarely spoke of their time there and as a result, even their families did not know about their wartime experiences. Through reading stories like Displacement, we build empathy and make progress towards understanding the full effect of these forgotten periods on our collective history. This knowledge in turn helps us to identify injustice, helps us to prevent violations of civil liberties and empowers us to stand up with those who are unfairly targeted. What  makes this book powerful is the connections drawn between the experiences of the Japanese Americans during World War II and the headlines of today. 

    For more information, I also highly recommend checking out Densho - a website which is dedicated to preserving the experiences of Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II. 

This book is available in the Nashua South Media Center. 

Just thinking about war -- Dear World / Bana Alabed and Other words for home / Jasmine Warga

 

War is a terrible thing. This image is a picture from the book Dear World. Bana Alabed was a 7-year-old child when she started Tweeting about the war that she was in the midst of, the war in Syria. Now she is 12 and Tweeting about the war in the Ukraine. She is not there but is angry that children must live through such horrors. 

Recently she Tweeted: 

The Scenarios are repeating themselves, the war has only one face that is Destruction. Each passing day is a real test for humanity. #StandWithUkraine️ #Ukraine️

Other Words for Home is a novel in verse, also about Syria. It is about Jude and her family living in a seaside community near Aleppo where Bana lived. Bana escaped Aleppo after the bombs destroyed her home. Jude, escaped Syria before the bombs found her home, but already there were soldiers and guns on each corner and life was getting dangerous.

Today we have war in the Ukraine. Again children are being harmed. Homes are being bombed. The whole world will be impacted by this world (the impact of this war has already impacted gas prices worldwide and may also impact food growth - half of the fertilizer that the world uses is made in Russia and the Ukraine.) It is important to understand the similarities between this war and all wars AND the specifics of the war in the Ukraine.

Read books, walk in the shoes of people who lived through war, develop empathy and understanding.

Read/Listen to the news. Learn what is going on in the world today. Even if you spend 10 minutes a day reading an article it will render you a better citizen of the world.

Book Review: Slaughterhouse-Five / Kurt Vonnegut

 

A quote from Kurt Vonnegut from the beginning of Slaughterhouse-five:

"The Dresden atrocity, tremendously expensive and meticulously planned, was so meaningless, finally, that only one person on the entire planet got any benefit from it. I am that person. I wrote this book, which earned a lot of money for me and made my reputation, such as it is. 

One way or another, I got two or thress dollars for every person killed.

Some business I'm in."

This is the story of Kurt Vonnegut, "more or less" charaterized through the main character in this story, Billy Pilgrim. Some of the story is of war. Some of the story is about becoming unstuck in time - moving back and forth through the ages and seeing all at once. Part of this story is pure fantasy - about an alien society of Tralfamadorians who put Billy Pilgrim in a zoo. Mostly, this is a story of war - how it dehumanizes people, how it is incredibly arbitrary, and how life's ripples impact more than those who are in front of us. 

I read this is two forms this weekend, both in the original book and in a new graphic novel. Both books can be found on the shelves of Nashua South, and through that Nashua Public Library. This story isn't for the faint of heart - war is horrible. 

Wishing for peace!

Book Review: Kent State by Deborah Wiles

War!

War is terrible and never simple. The consequences of war impacts people world wide. 

Kent State is about protesters in 1970 speaking out against the United States's involvement in the Vietnam war. The protests escalated. The National Guard was called in and things got messy. 

Imagine a warm spring day. Finally being able to shed your winter coat. Image the sun shining down. Imagine that your friend, your brother, your father, your uncle... was sent to fight a war that you don't even believe in or understand why the USA is involved with. Imagine that involvement becoming escalated. Image joining other students on the lawn of the university to share your thoughts, your discomfort, your anger... and then:

"It was mayhem.
The police chasing,
the students screaming at them,
the Guard stomping toward us, 
the helicopters churning above us, 
gassing us from the air, 
ghostly tendrils from the canisters
spiraling through the spotlights --"

This was the campus of Kent State on May 4th 1970. A day when protest became violent. Imagine this ripple of war. 

Kent State has an interesting format. It is a novel in verse. There are a number of voices that tell the story - each uses a different font. None of them are identified. This is a really unique way to show a number of perspectives concerning a single event. Even if we stand beside each other and witness the same happening - our stories will be different. Our backgrounds, our mood, what we know, what we desire - will all impact our perspective. 

The book Kent State is available on the shelves of the Nashua South library. You can also find this book on the shelves at the Nashua Public Library and through their app, Hoopla.

Want to learn more about the protests at Kent State? Learn about it here: The May 4th Shootings at Kent State University: The Search for Historical Accuracy

Book Review: Guantanamo Voices: True Accounts from the World's Most Infamous Prison / Edited by Sarah Mirk

 

Sick Day Book Review.

I can't remember the last time I took a sick day - this might be a once a decade happening for me. But this morning I was hit by the migraine fairy and was incapable of doing anything but sitting in the dark. Eventually, the fairy loosened her grip and I could read a bit if the light was dim and it was quiet.

So how do I spend a sick day (after I slept through first block?) I start a knitting project that matches the colors of my book that I am reading. (And drink LOTS of water - doesn't water heal everything?)

This is a terribly sad and confusing story well told through a series of interviews. The interviewees all had Guantanamo connections - from prisoners to attorneys to NCIS. Then the interviews were placed in a comic strip format and each interview was illustrated by a different artist. The color scheme pulls the book together - all in sunset colors (as is my knitting project - that is a coincidence.)

This story makes my heart hurt, but I am glad that I read it.

Guantanamo Voices will soon be found on the Nashua South shelves (I just need to figure out where to put it), on the shelves at the Nashua Public Library and through NPL's Hoopla.