Jeanne Wakatsuki was seven years old in 1942 when her family was uprooted from their home and sent to live at Manzanar internment camp--with 10,000...
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Dec 21, 2011
Jennifer
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Reviewed by Taylor Rector for TeensReadToo.com
FAREWELL TO MANZANAR is the chilling autobiography of a Japanese-American girl who survived the interment camps during World War II.
When I began reading this book I had no idea what the "internment" camps were. This is a subject that not many know about and is not a very well-known time in history. "Internment" camps were camps that the American government put together after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor to ho More...
FAREWELL TO MANZANAR is the chilling autobiography of a Japanese-American girl who survived the interment camps during World War II.
When I began reading this book I had no idea what the "internment" camps were. This is a subject that not many know about and is not a very well-known time in history. "Internment" camps were camps that the American government put together after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor to ho More...
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Jun 28, 2007
Allison
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I did not enjoy this book at all.If it wasn't assigned for school,I wouldn't have given it a second glance.The plot was hard to follow as you see a Japanese girl put in a concentration-like camp.They have all they need, yet, she wants to run away.I didn't understand a lot of it and everyone in my class dreaded taking this book out.
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Jan 29, 2008
Tammy
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The scene where Jeanne's mother throws her china dishes onto the floor - one by one - in front of a salesman who wants to buy them for an offensively low price, just because he knows she has no choice -is one of the best moments of triumph of the human spirit over injustice that I have ever read. I will never forget it.
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Jun 25, 2007
Tiffany
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I was incensed at the government for the first time in my life after reading this at age 11. That was the first time I looked at the myths of our country critically. I think it's sad that they only way children learn about the Japanese internment situation is through reading outside of school.
Mar 22, 2008
Cindy
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Although I've read a lot of stories written by Holocaust survivors, this was the first book that I have read about the Japanese-American internment camps. This is a part of American history that many, many Americans seem to know nothing about.
Apr 14, 2008
Jing
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It was around the time when Japan attacked Pearl Harbor, an area that reside to America. This arouse racism towards Japanese. Ever since then, people began to persecute this race. A young girl named Jeanne told of her story how hard to accept others doing to herself. Some people were challenged in where their loyalty resides.
America is not a perfect place, there are always some people who persecute other thinking that they are superior to others or by fear. If America live like More...
America is not a perfect place, there are always some people who persecute other thinking that they are superior to others or by fear. If America live like More...
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Mar 22, 2007
Erin
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Great memoir that tells the story of Japanese internment through the eyes of a girl who was 7 when she arrived there. Great for history buffs and even more so for history teachers. The author describes her experiences at the camp in vivid detail and - even more powerfully - explains the impact of those experiences on her after she left the camp. Teachers of adolescents can do amazing things with passages from the book that relate to identity and self-image. Good, quick read that can be read o
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Aug 02, 2010
Erin
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Reading as an adult, I think I enjoyed the book much more at the beginning. Initially, the story is intriguing, specific, and personal, setting the reader in the moment. It's strength is that it tells a particular and true tale of the Japanese Internment that is not just a story that happens during the time period, but a personal experience and the connections to events before and after the years in Manzanar. Compared to the horrible stories of human atrocities heard from other parts of the worl
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Sep 24, 2011
Anne
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I read this for my tutoring job as it's required reading for one of the classes.
Having recently read and enjoyed THE HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET by Jamie Ford, I was anxious to read and understand more about the internment of Japanese Americans. This story is told through the memories of a woman who was only seven when she and her family were moved from Los Angeles to the Owens Valley area of east-central California. Her POV is naturally quite different from that of Ford's More...
Having recently read and enjoyed THE HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET by Jamie Ford, I was anxious to read and understand more about the internment of Japanese Americans. This story is told through the memories of a woman who was only seven when she and her family were moved from Los Angeles to the Owens Valley area of east-central California. Her POV is naturally quite different from that of Ford's More...
Aug 03, 2011
Timothy
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Well, here's a heartbreaker that filled me with simultaneous shame and pride at being human. Shame that I'm a member of the species that snatched these innocent people out of their homes and daily lives, shattered some of their families permanently, and forced them behind fences at the ass end of nowhere. Pride that I'm a member of the species that took this with such dignity, that created a community behind the wire, used took the only things they had -- rocks and sand -- to build rock-and-sa
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Mar 21, 2011
Bob
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I chose this book because I am always interested with books pertaining to World War II and this book seemed to interest me. This is the story of a girl who grows up in California in a Japanese family During the early-middle 1900's. Her father was suspected of selling oil to Japanese soldiers off the coast of California. They are soon sent to a camp in which they stay with other Japanese families until the war is over. This story shares the struggles, hardships and highlights of her time in Manza
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Feb 06, 2010
Sam
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Usually when you get a book to read for schoolwork it'll be a pain. That's not so with a select few books (and generally books are better if you read them for enjoyment, not work), nor is it with this one...but this one isn't exactly good, either.
Farewell to Manzanar is a memoir about the Japanese internment camps located in the U.S. during WWII. This was an interesting subject for me and it opened my eyes to something a lot of people don't know about. That's probably the best thi More...
Farewell to Manzanar is a memoir about the Japanese internment camps located in the U.S. during WWII. This was an interesting subject for me and it opened my eyes to something a lot of people don't know about. That's probably the best thi More...
Oct 13, 2009
Alexa SOF2014
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Farewell to Manzanar is a true story of Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston and her Japanese family. They had been living in California for many years and her father was a fisherman there. Jeanne was seven years old when Pearl harbor was bombed in 1942. The Japanese were not given permanent immigration status so her entire family was put in an internment camp in Southern California (Manzanar). The family was treated like prisoners. They lived in cramped conditions, badly prepared food, unfinished barracks,
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Apr 09, 2009
Ken
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Author Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston has succeeded in writing a book that is readable and worthwhile for any reader -- I would say ages 12 to adult. I wish I had been assigned this in school, for I did not learn about Japanese internment camps until much later, probably my senior year in high school. I'd be willing to venture that even many high school students don't learn much about this part of American history.
The author wisely avoids pathos and melodrama, which allows the situation to s More...
The author wisely avoids pathos and melodrama, which allows the situation to s More...
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Aug 20, 2011
Ptreick
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I just reread this book in preparation for teaching it to my seventh graders. The book is powerful, and the themes of nationality/ethnic heritage/prejudice/racism/acculturation are powerful; many of my students will relate to the Wakatsukis in one way or another.
I've probably read the book two or three times, and each time I do feel like I still don't have the best understanding of Japanese internment camps, specifically Manzanar.
Maybe this isn't so much a fault of this More...
I've probably read the book two or three times, and each time I do feel like I still don't have the best understanding of Japanese internment camps, specifically Manzanar.
Maybe this isn't so much a fault of this More...
Jun 06, 2010
Sheina
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If I saw the book Farewell to Manzanar in a library, I wouldn't have picked it up voluntarily. The cover does not "speak to me" as other books do. When I began the book, I didn't have any knowledge about what happened to the Japanese during the war. This book gave me a vivid insight into what a normal Japanese girl must have felt during this time. I wasn't sure how a true story about the past was going to interest me. All I knew was that I had to read this book for school. After readin
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Dec 23, 2011
Lawrence
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Jeanne Wakatsuki, who was seven years old when Executive Order 9066 was issued, offers a personal look into the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. As she recounts her own experiences and also those of her family members, she reflects on her initial confusion with the imprisonment and her attempt to grasp its meaning. In the three years that her family spent fenced in at the Manzanar concentration camp, she watches the fragmentation of her family as various Wakatsukis struggle
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Aug 21, 2010
Erin
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Reading as an adult, I think I enjoyed the book much more at the beginning. Initially, the story is intriguing, specific, and personal, setting the reader in the moment. It's strength is that it tells a particular and true tale of the Japanese Internment that is not just a story that happens during the time period, but a personal experience and the connections to events before and after the years in Manzanar. Compared to the horrible stories of human atrocities heard from other parts of the worl
More...
Mar 27, 2011
Elaine
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So glad I reread this book after learning a lot more about the WWII incarceration of Japanese Americans and a visit to Manzanar last month. This story is powerfully told -- despite, or maybe because -- this monumental and cruel upheaval of an entire community is seen through the eyes of a very young girl. The dislocation and bleakness of the camp, sometimes devolving into violence, takes a toll on her. But even worse is her father's alcoholism, depression and abuse of her mother. Wakatsuki Ho
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Dec 01, 2009
Danielle
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This book really changed my life as a youth. My parents both encouraged me to read it. Specifically my mother who is not that Japanese side of my heritage. My great grandparents on my father's side were originally from Japan. My grandfather who was full blooded first generation American fought in WWII. My great uncle however did not and was with his family put into a Japanese internment camp. It gave me a view into what my family went through. Brothers divided on the idea of the war and the susp
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Jun 18, 2009
Terry
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A good look into the reaction of Japanese Americans to internment and life in the camps. We must understand what we did to Japanese Americans to understand that freedoms get suspended when there is a national emergency.
I had recently completed Traitor to His Class, and this book is a good balance.
From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America also treated the summary internment of Japanese Americans and the suspension of Habeus More...
I had recently completed Traitor to His Class, and this book is a good balance.
From the Palmer Raids to the Patriot Act: A History of the Fight for Free Speech in America also treated the summary internment of Japanese Americans and the suspension of Habeus More...
Mar 13, 2011
Matthew
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Growing up as a Japanese American girl in California, Jeanne Wakatsuki and her family have a peaceful life in America until Pearl Harbor is bombed and everything turns around for them. Farewell To Manzanar is written in the first person perspective of Jeanne Wakatsuki who grows up throughout the book, telling her true story of internment camp, Manzanar. Wakatsuki opens up a unique perspective in which the reader is easily compelled to view throughout the book as Wakatsuki describes her life chan
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Jul 13, 2011
Sandra
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Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston looks back on her experiences in a World War II Japanese-American internment camp. Seven year-old Jeanne and her family were forced to give up their coastal home, livelihood and possessions for relocation in California's high desert. Houston's account is unique because it is told from a child's perspective. The children of Manzanar seemed better able to cope with internment than the adults. They made friends, formed clubs and learned skills. However, observing their pare
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May 06, 2010
Mat
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I found Farewell to Manzanar to be very interesting overall. The perspective imparted by someone who experienced the events of World War Two, and specifically the Japanese internment, creates an amount of emotion that could, at least in my opinion, never be matched by a history book. Jeanne Wakatsuki's rather informal writing style kept me from writing off the book as just another boring, historical, novel. The combination of personal experience and an intriguing style of composition left me w
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Mar 21, 2008
sarafem
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Autobiography of a woman whose childhood was spent at Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp during WWII. Excellent book, though it may have glossed over some of the hardships of living in the camp (based on other stories I have heard) and dragged a bit at times.
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Sep 29, 2011
Lisa
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The perspective given in this book is quite interesting. It was told by a woman who was a young girl during World War II. She details the circumstances of her family as they are moved into an internment camp due to being of Japanese descent. I highly recommend reading this to get a clearer picture of what was going on in America during World War II. To be of Japanese decent living in America at that time put you in a position of being "the enemy", even though many had been born in t
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Jun 19, 2010
Neil
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This book details the U.S. government incarceration of Japanese families during the Second World War from the viewpoint of a young girl.
It's a timely story given both the immigration debate and issues of racial profiling currently in the news.
I reccommend this book to girls and boys as an interdisciplinary reading for Social Studies -- one that could be used to discuss 20th century history as well as current events.
My only disappointment in the book, co-writte More...
It's a timely story given both the immigration debate and issues of racial profiling currently in the news.
I reccommend this book to girls and boys as an interdisciplinary reading for Social Studies -- one that could be used to discuss 20th century history as well as current events.
My only disappointment in the book, co-writte More...
Feb 08, 2012
Ben
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I'm curious if I'll feel more strongly about this book after I meet the author in a few months. I did like the story of Manzanar through the eyes of a young girl, and the deeply personal way in which the injustice of the camps is told. As much as I felt awful for the residents of Manzanar, I feel so much worse for so many other injustices people have suffered. I think Americans feel rightly guilty about such a stupid, needless, and racist thing perpetrated in our country, because we're supposedl
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Jan 18, 2012
Jeff
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Sometimes a book sneaks up on you.
Starting this book I was immediately caught up in the story and the plight of the characters, but it was in an almost off hand way. We forget sometimes what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII, and the opening chapters laid out what happened to one Japanese family in a way that seemed at first a little clinical. It was disturbing in an abstract sort of way. There was a sense of distance, both of time and familiarity. However as the story progr More...
Starting this book I was immediately caught up in the story and the plight of the characters, but it was in an almost off hand way. We forget sometimes what happened to Japanese Americans during WWII, and the opening chapters laid out what happened to one Japanese family in a way that seemed at first a little clinical. It was disturbing in an abstract sort of way. There was a sense of distance, both of time and familiarity. However as the story progr More...
Jan 09, 2010
Natalie
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In her memoir Farwell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatuki Houston recounts her years spent at Manzanar internment camp. In 1942, at seven years old, she and her extended family were driven from their California home to the camp with thousands of other Japanese-Americans. Pearl Harbor had just been attacked by Japan, which made the U.S. afraid of anyone with connection to that country, even innocent American citizens. In the internment camp, Houston had experiences similar to many other American childre
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