I don't generally read a lot of graphic novels, but I really appreciate it as a medium for making certain topics, like Japanese internment camps, accessible to young readers.
Kiku Hughes is 16 years old, half Japanese, and lives in 2016 Seattle. She doesn't know much about her Japanese American ancestry when she's suddenly and inexplicably transported to 1942 and finds herself in a Japanese internment camp, where she learns about Japanese American history by experiencing it first-hand.
I liked that the author actually used the term "incarceration camp" instead of "internment camp", a decision explained in the back of the book. I've always thought of "internment camp" as a euphemism that doesn't sufficiently convey the inhumanity of the camps.
I also really appreciated seeing a mixed-raced protagonist, which is still pretty rare in books, I think. It's hard enough trying to understand your identity as a 4th generation Asian American, and being half white just adds a whole other layer of complexity.
And speaking of identity. Through illustrations, we know that Kiku and a friend were members of the LGBTQ community, but it wasn't mentioned in the text explicitly.
This book explores generational and community trauma, then shows how that legacy can be used to help advance justice for other marginalized groups. The "current time" part of the book takes place during and after the 2016 presidential election. Clear parallels are drawn between the U.S. treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the Trump administration's anti-Muslim and anti-Latinx immigration policies.
My only complaint is that we never learn anything at all about Kiku's grandfather or her white father. Her grandmother was apparently a single mother, and she later re-married, but I couldn't help but wonder what happened to the father of her children. Along the same lines, we also don't know anything about Kiku's white father. I understand that there's not much reason to include him for most of the book, but at the end, it would have been a nice showing of support to see him learning about Japanese American history and going to protests alongside his wife and daughter.
