The author of the Anastasia books as well as more serious fiction ( Rabble Starkey, 1987) offers her first historical fiction-a story about the escape of the Jews from Denmark in 1943.įive years younger than Lisa in Carol Matas' Lisa's War (1989), Annemarie Johansen has, at 10, known three years of Nazi occupation. This auspicious relaunch of the Dear America series includes an historical note, archival images, web resources, a recipe, Roosevelt's 'day that will live in infamy' speech-and the author's name on the cover. An epilogue brings the story into the present for several of the characters. The appalling removal of immigrant and American-born Japanese from their homes and the discomfort, sorrow, grit and struggle in Camp Minidoka in Idaho are detailed through Piper’s visits with her father, who is appointed to its church. Piper’s voice is believably that of a young girl in the war years, and though the narrative is somewhat episodic, it has plenty of emotional resonance. The quick escalation of events after Pearl Harbor, the worries about her brother, the incarceration and relocation of friends and neighbors-all are chronicled with care and detail. Piper’s community in Seattle is a seemingly tight-knit one, and her father is minister to the Japanese Baptist congregation. Her older brother has just been stationed in Hawaii-far, his family thought, from the fighting in Europe. Piper, meanwhile, hates her new life, but soon, through her budding friendship with Betty, a Japanese-American girl who is interned in the camp, Piper learns how it important it is to bear witness to the events that were bound to change America.Piper Davis is 13 in the fall of 1941 when she begins her diary. Her brother, who survived the Pearl Harbor strike, is stationed in the Pacific, while her brother-in-law is shipped off to Europe to fight. Piper is jealous of her older sister, who gets to remain at home and go off to work. Piper's father is the pastor for a Japanese Baptist church, and when its members are taken away to Minidoka, Idaho, to be interned, Pastor Davis moves his family from Seattle to Idaho to be with his congregation.

After the devastating attack on Pearl Harbor, where her brother, a navy sailor, is stationed, Piper Davis begins chronicling her compelling journey through one of history's most tragic and unforgettable eras.

And one girl's entire life is about to change when everything she knows is turned on its head. When Pearl Harbor is attacked, America is finally unable to ignore the wars raging in Europe and Asia any longer. With this sweeping tale of life on the World War II homefront, Newbery Honor author Kirby Larson brings her incredible talent to the Dear America series.

The Fences Between Us by Kirby Larson