1942- 1946
During World War II, over 100,000 Japanese-Americans were forcibly removed from their homes and placed in internment camps by the U.S. government. This was in response to fears of espionage after Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor. Families were uprooted from their lives and made to live in harsh conditions in remote camps across the country. This unjust treatment reflected widespread racial prejudice and violated civil rights, leaving a lasting impact on Japanese-American communities.
Picture books
Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind
Excerpts from real letters written by interred children to their librarian
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Fish for Jimmy
Story of a family’s resilience during internment
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A Place Where Sunflowers Grow
Story of a girl seeking out beauty in an internment camp
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Baseball Saved Us
Story of interred folks building a baseball field
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The Bracelet
Story of a girl’s loss and resilience during internment
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Barbed Wire Baseball: How One Man Brought Hope to the Japanese Internment Camps of WWII
True story of an interred boy bringing baseball to his camp
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Chapter books
Weedflower
Moving story of a girl’s life before and during internment, and her friendship with a Mohave boy
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Stealing Home
Graphic novel about a boy using baseball to cope with internment, plus history of the policy
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Dust of Eden
Powerful novel in verse about a girl’s reflections on internment
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Paper Wishes
Moving novel about a Japanese-American girl adjusting to life in a camp without her dog
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My Nest of Silence
Graphic novel about a Japanese-American girl whose family is interred and brother is fighting in the Army
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The Japanese American Internment: An Interactive History Adventure
Choose-your-own-adventure stories set in a internment camp
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The Journal of Ben Uchida
Fictional diary of an interred boy
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The Fences Between Us: The Diary of Piper Davis
Fictional diary of a girl whose pastor father relocates them near an internment camp
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Non-fiction books
Farewell to Manzanar
Powerful true story of the author’s life as a child in an internment camp
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They Called Us Enemy
Stunning graphic novel memoir of the famous actor’s childhood imprisonment in a camp
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Enemy Child
True story of an Japanese-American boy from his life before the war, his family’s internment, and his eventual career
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I am an American: A True Story of Japanese Internment
Compelling true story of one boy’s internment, with context around the policy
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