Browse > Reading Level > Grades 9-12
40 articles
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Peace Is a Chain Reaction: How World War II Japanese Balloon Bombs Brought People of Two Nations Together (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- History
- Forgiveness, Power of the past, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
Narrative non-fiction book for middle grade readers about the aftermath of a tragedy involving World War II Japanese balloon bombs centering on Yuzuru John Takeshita, a Kibei man who had been incarcerated at Tule Lake .
City in the Sun (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Displacement, Evils of racism
- Limited availability
1946 novel by Karon Kehoe that represented the first full-length work of adult fiction to dramatize Japanese American confinement.
Issei and Nisei: The Internment Years (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Displacement, Importance of community, Role of religion - value or hypocrisy
- Available
Memoir of a young Issei Episcopal clergyman based in Washington state during the trying years of World War II. Published in the fall of 1967, Daisuke Kitagawa 's account was among the first book-length first-person accounts of the Japanese American incarceration.
Farewell to Manzanar (book)
- Books
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Coming of age, Displacement, Evils of racism, Family – blessing or curse, Working class struggles
- Widely available
Popular memoir that tells the story of one family's forced removal and confinement at Manzanar through the eyes of a young girl. First published in 1973, Farewell to Manzanar has sold over one million copies and is one of the most widely read accounts of Japanese American incarceration and its aftermath.
displacement (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Graphic Novels, Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Injustice, Power of the past
- Widely available
Graphic novel set in 2016 whose protagonist, sixteen-year-old "Kiku Hughes," begins to experience strange episodes of time travel that take her back to her grandmother's wartime exclusion and incarceration at Tanforan and Topaz . Completely lost at first, "Kiku" comes of age in the concentration camps, making close friends, building community, and enjoying a romance with another teenage girl. Back in the present, she and her mother—who reveals that she has also experienced such episodes of "displacement"—discuss the importance of their family history and the need to use that knowledge to protest on behalf of others.
Take What You Can Carry (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Young Adult
- Coming of age, Individual versus society, Vulnerability of the strong, Wisdom of experience
- Widely available
The lives of two older teen boys, Kyle and Ken, alternate stories in the graphic novel Take What You Can Carry (2012) by Kevin C. Pyle. Although experienced a generation apart, the stories of these two teens merge into a complete story of healing and redemption.
Uprooted: The Japanese American Experience during World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 9-12
- Young adult
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Widely available
Acclaimed overview work on the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans by professional historian and prolific children's book author Albert Marrin.
We Are Not Free (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Children's, Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, Companionship as salvation, Facing darkness, Importance of community
- Widely available
Young adult novel by Traci Chee that tells the wartime incarceration story through the eyes of a group of teenage friends from San Francisco.
American in Disguise (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Identity crisis, Wisdom of experience
- Available
American in Disguise is Daniel Okimoto's account of his search for identity in America and Japan. The book was originally published in 1971 by John Weatherhill, Inc, with a foreword by James Michener.
American Scrapbook (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Historical fiction
- Identity crisis, Family
- Widely available
Novel set in Manzanar and Tule Lake by prolific writer Jerome Charyn and published in 1969.
Burma Rifles: A Story of Merrill's Marauders (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Historical Fiction, Children's
- Heroism – real and perceived, Injustice, Vulnerability of the strong, War – glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Limited availability
Book for young readers by Frank Bonham centering on a Nisei intelligence soldier in Burma during World War II. Published in 1960, it is among the first children's books to depict the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
A Boy No More (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Young Adult, History
- Coming of age, Growing up – pain or pleasure, Overcoming – fear, weakness, vice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Widely available
A 2004 young adult novel by Harry Mazer about Adam Pelko, who is torn between grieving his father, who died on the USS Arizona during the attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941 , and his feelings of loyalty towards his Japanese American best friend, Devi, whose own father has been arrested and taken to the War Relocation Authority camp in Manzanar, California. When Devi asks Adam to help him find his father, Adam is faced with a moral conflict: should he risk both his own safety and his friendship in order to do what is right? He is also still deeply affected by the bombing of Pearl Harbor and the urge to scapegoat the Japanese Americans, despite his urge to help and defend his friend.
A Bridge Between Us (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Fiction
- Coming of age, Role of women
- Widely available
Critically acclaimed 1995 novel by Julie Shigekuni that is both a multi-generational family saga about a Japanese American family in San Francisco and a coming-of-age novel centered on a fifth-generation Japanese American woman growing up in a four generation household. The story—which includes the family's incarceration at Heart Mountain —is told from the perspectives of four women of different generations who live together in the family home in San Francisco.
Color of the Sea (book)
- Books
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Young Adult, Historical Fiction
- Coming of age, War - glory, necessity, pain, tragedy
- Widely available
A coming-of-age novel by first time novelist John Hamamura centering on a Kibei raised in Japan, Hawai'i, and California and that climaxes with his wartime experiences that include arrest, the Military Intelligence Service , and the atomic bombing of Hiroshima. The book won an Alex Award from the Young Adult Library Services Association in 2007.
I Call to Remembrance: Toyo Suyemoto's Years of Internment (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Rights - individual or societal, Motherhood, Displacement
- Widely available
The memoir of poet Toyo Suyemoto that spans her years of incarceration in Tanforan Assembly Center and later, at Topaz in Utah, from spring 1942 to late autumn 1945. The book, published in 2007 by Rutgers University Press, focuses on the quotidian life in an American concentration camp, while coping both physically and psychologically with the brutality of imprisonment behind barbed wire. The book is dedicated to Suyemoto's son Kay and details his short life from birth in Berkeley, California, to his first steps at Tanforan in a crowded horse stall, and finally to Utah where he developed a serious asthmatic condition and pneumonia in the harsh atmosphere of camp which eventually lead to his premature death. Suyemoto's memoir includes the impact of policies and wartime decisions on her family and the larger Japanese American community, bringing insight on complex and controversial questions of loyalty, citizenship and resistance. She also …
Internment of Japanese Americans (Greenhaven Press) (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12
- Grades 9-12
- Young adult
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice
- Limited availability
Reader intended for high school audiences that includes a mixture of primary, contemporaneous, and contemporary pieces on the wartime incarceration of Japanese Americans.
Japanese Americans Struggle for Equality (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12
- Grades 9-12
- Children's, History
- Immigrant experience, Injustice, Progress – real or illusion, Social mobility
- Limited availability
Early overview book for young readers on the Japanese American experience framed through a lens of discrimination and the responses to it. Issued as part of a "Discrimination" series on various ethnic groups by Rourke Corporation (now Rourke Educational Media), it was published in 1992.
Japanese-American Internment during World War II (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12
- Grades 9-12
- Young Adult, History
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Widely available
Overview book by Peggy Daniels Becker on the World War II removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans that includes a one-hundred page narrative summary, eleven short biographies of key figures, and a selection of primary sources. It is part of the "Defining Moments" series published by Omnigraphics.
The Japanese American Internment: Innocence, Guilt, and Wartime Justice (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Young Adult, History
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- Available
Overview of the wartime removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans by Ann Heinrichs that is part of Marshall Cavendish Benchmark's "Perspectives on... " series.
A Jive Bomber's Christmas (play)
- Plays
- Grades 6-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Musical
- Importance of community, Optimism - power or folly
- Widely available
Musical play set in a World War II concentration camp by Saachiko and Dom Magwili. First produced for the Japanese American National Museum (JANM) in 1994, A Jive Bomber's Christmas became a holiday tradition in Los Angeles, enjoying a nine-year run and subsequent revivals in Los Angeles and in Hawai'i. The play was based in part on Saachiko Magwili's childhood memories of Heart Mountain and shares a structural similarity with Dom Magwili's earlier Christmas in Camp , first produced at East West Players in 1981.
Journey to Washington (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir
- Self-reliance, Patriotism - positive side or complications, Empowerment
- Limited availability
Ghostwritten autobiography by Senator Daniel K. Inouye of Hawai'i, authored with Lawrence Elliott and published in 1967. One of the first autobiographies by a Nisei , Journey to Washington was published as Inouye was finishing his first term as a U.S. Senator from Hawai'i and preparing to run for reelection. The book covers his life up to that time, beginning with his grandfather leaving Japan to come to America to pay off a debt and ending with his father visiting the White House to visit President John. F. Kennedy. A success story that established a template for many Nisei memoirs to come, the book reinforced the " model minority " narrative then current. Reader's Digest also excerpted the book in its February 1968 issue. The book includes three forewords, by President Lyndon Johnson, Vice-President Hubert Humphrey, and Senate Majority Leader Mike Mansfield.
Korematsu v. The United States: World War II Japanese-American Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12
- Grades 9-12
- Young Adult, History
- Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Individual versus society, Injustice, Rights - individual or societal
- Available
Book for young adult readers on the Korematsu v. U.S. Supreme Court case by Karen Latchana Kenney. The 160 page volume is part of ABDO Publishing Company's "Landmark Supreme Court Cases" series of eight books.
Korematsu v. United States: Japanese-American Internment (book)
- Books
- Grades 9-12
- Grades 9-12
- Young Adult, History
- Convention and rebellion, Evils of racism, Individual versus society, Injustice, Rights - individual or societal
- Available
Overview of the Korematsu Supreme Court case —as well as the related Hirabayashi , Yasui , and Endo cases—as part of Marshall Cavendish Benchmark's "Supreme Court Milestones" series.
Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps (book)
- Books
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Grades 7-8, Grades 9-12, Adult
- Memoir, Children's
- Evils of racism, Facing darkness, Family – blessing or curse, Injustice, Loss of innocence, Power of the past
- Widely available
Incarceration memoir of life at Pinedale Assembly Center , Tule Lake , and Minidoka , by Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, a seventeen-year-old Nisei at the time of her and her family's forced removal from their Washington state farm. First published in 2005 by NewSage Press, it was followed by a young reader's edition in 2010.
The Nisei Monologues: Children of the Camps (play)
- Plays
- Grades 9-12
- Grades 9-12
- Displacement, Evils of racism, Hazards of passing judgment, Injustice, Patriotism – positive side or complications
- No availability
Three actor play in which the actors give monologues adapted from actual words of Japanese Americans about incarceration, covering the range of the experience from witnessing Japanese planes flying overhead to attack Pearl Harbor, to the arrests of Issei community leaders, the roundup of Japanese Americans, and resistance and cooperation in the concentration camps. Though most pieces are not attributed, first person narratives by Min Yasui , James Sakamoto , and Joe Kurihara are noted. In between the monologues are stories from Japanese mythology and statements by various government officials both in support of and opposing the forced removal and incarceration.
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