Book: Weedflower

Author: Cynthia Kadohata

Genre: Historical Fiction

Page Count: 273

Sumiko’s family make their living growing stock or “weedflowers”. But when the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, she finds out that they won’t ever return to their farm, and her life will never be the same. They are shipped off to an internment camp in the middle of the desert, where she will make unexpected friends, enemies, and unforgettable memories.

As you can probably tell from the previous paragraph, this book is about WWII. I’ve never read a book about the internment camps before, and I think this one was a good start. The plot wasn’t too intense, leaving room for you to focus on the history, while not letting the story grow boring. The characters were intriguing and lifelike.

A heavy theme in this book was looking forwards and never giving up hope. It was very interesting to see how different characters reacted to the camps. Some really believed it was for their protection (or at least were trying to convince themselves), some got angry, some were sad, some adjusted quickly, and some never adjusted at all.

I would recommend this book.