Red Sky Over Hawaii

Red Sky Over Hawaii by Sara Ackerman  352 pages

I have read a great many of the plethora of World War II novels that have been the centerpiece of historical fiction in the last few years. However, this is the first one that I have encountered that took place in Hawaii.

Lana Hitchcock has recently separated from her husband. She feel adrift that everything feel apart so quickly. She has a feeling that something bad was going to happen that’s even worse. A phone call from her estranged father, Jack, asking her to come to the Big Island to see him. She has had a feeling that something bad was going to happen. However, she doesn’t arrive in time, and she must figure out what he wanted.

After the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor, Lana is stuck in Hilo, the town where Jack resided. She befriends the German family next door.  The parents, Ingrid and Fred Wagner, are arrested and taken away. Hawaii is still in total chaos after the bombing, and no one seems to know what will the Wagners, or when. Germans aren’t the only ones being rounded up; Japanese are also high on the list, which causes Lana concern about her father’s best friend, Moshi.

The Wagners have two adopted daughters, Marie and Coco, who are left behind. The man Fred  put in charge of the girls seems shady to Lana, and she feels they are in danger if left with him.  Lana takes charge of the girls and their pets: two geese, that once belonged to Jack, and a dog.

Desperate to leave Hilo in the uncertainty if a Japanese invasion is imminent, Lana pays a visit to the father’s close friend, Moshi. She is making plans to go to Jack’s cabin, hidden in the national park, near the Volcano.

Along with Lana are all the characters mentioned above plus  Moshi’s foster son, Benji. When they arrive at the cabin, Lana is distraught that it is only partially completed---in fact, one whole wall is missing. They do their best to make it a home, as they have no idea how long they will be there.

The book’s theme is making a family with the people you are with. It’s a story of survival.

While I wish author Ackerman had supplied a glossary of the flora that she describes, I still felt that I could see the island’s beauty.  The ending was blah, but I still enjoyed reading about this time in Hawaii’s history.  “Red Sky Over Hawaii”  receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

The Last Year of the War

The Last Year of the War by Susan Meissner   400 page


Susan Meissner’s latest novel, “The Last Year of the War” is set against the backdrop of World War II, but it could easily be written about today’s plight of immigrants around the world.

Elise Sontag Dove is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease. She knows the dark pall is rapidly descending upon her, taking everything—and everybody---she has loved. Before it’s too late, Elise wants to find her friend, Mariko, whom she hasn’t seen since their families were housed near each other in an American-government sanctioned internment camp in Crystal City, Texas, in 1943-1944.

Through a series of fortunate events, Elise locates her friend who is now living in San Francisco. Will her disease rob her of her friend before she can see her again?  Elise doesn’t know, but it’s urgent that she see her as soon as possible.

As Elise makes her way to meet her friend, she recalls growing up in Davenport, Iowa. Her parents had emigrated from Germany twenty years earlier. Although they were registered aliens, they had never applied for citizenship. They always thought there would be time. Davenport, Iowa, is not exactly a hotbed of Nazi sympathizers, but fear of the German war machine is racing across America. Suddenly, Elise’s father, Otto, is arrested and sent to an American-government internment camp. Elise is stunned but not quite as stunned as when her friends and their parents begin to shun the Sontags.

Otto requests, and is granted, relocation to a family internment camp in Crystal City, Texas. There she meets the Japanese-American girl, Mariko. The two become best friends, planning a future move to New York to become journalists after the war is over and they turn eighteen.

That dream dies when the families are pulled apart. Elise and her family are sent back to Germany while Mariko and her family are sent to Japan. Neither country is a welcome place in the middle of a world war. The girls are forced to stop having contact with each other, but Elise has never forgotten her friend.

“The Last Year of the War” is a fascinating look at fear of people who might be different than you and the unbreakable bonds of friendship. The dueling timelines, one of my favorite plot structures, is well done. I would estimate that ninety percent of the book takes place from 1943 on, which gives readers an opportunity to get to know Elise as she was before the Alzheimer’s begins to rob her.
It does drag a bit in the middle. That is the reason “The Last Year of the War” receives 4 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

Different Days

Different Days by Vicki Berger Erwin, 270 pages

“Twelve-year-old Rosie is fiercely proud to be an American, and has a happy life with her family in their comfortable home in sunny Honolulu, Hawaii. Then, on the morning of December 7, 1941, Pearl Harbor is bombed and everything changes. Rosie's parents, both of German descent — but American citizens who have lived in Hawaii nearly all their lives — are immediately rounded up by the military. Though they've done nothing wrong, they are interrogated as German spies and imprisoned, and all the family's possessions are seized. Within days, Rosie and her brother are abandoned and homeless. A relative begrudgingly takes them in until their beloved aunt (who was also rounded up, but released) comes for them. Even then, the children's once-idyllic lives are filled with darkness and discrimination as they can only wait — and hope — for their parents' safe return. Based on true events, Different Days tells the story of a little-known aspect of World War II: the Internment of German Americans.” I had no idea that German Americans were also sent to internment camps during World War II.  This book felt a little unfinished and unpolished to me but I liked the story.  Kids who like historical fiction would like it.

Thief of Glory

Thief of Glory by Sigmund Brouwer  326 pages  (waiting on SLPL to get)

  

 

Prolific author Sigmun Brouwer sets this 2014 release in the Dutch East Indies (now Indonesia) during World War II.

Ten-year-old Jeremiah Prins live a luxurious life. His father is a school headmaster, his mother stays at home, and he has five siblings.  He spends his days in school and playing marbles. Jeremiah is an avid marble player and wins more often than not. He has two pouches of marbles that he carries with him at all times and that are tucked neatly below his belt and beneath his shorts.

Life is idyllic. Until the Japanese invasion of the Southeast Pacific in 1942. Jeremiah and his family are sent to an internment camp, where life is brutal. His father and two older step-brothers are sent to a work camp; while the rest of family stays together.

Houses in the camp are divided so that each family gets one room. There is no privacy. There are long, long lines for food and medicine. Brouwer’s descriptions of life in these camps seems much harsher than the accounts that I have read about the American internment camps of the same period. Jeremiah does his best to stand up to his new role in the family: protector and provider. His mother has a much weaker constitution than he imagined. Luckily for Jeremiah, he has his marbles and his friend Laura, with whom he is besotted as he takes on these new responsibilities.

At one particularly harrowing adventure, Jeremiah finds a way out of the cap. He is able to do into the nearby city and trade for the medicines and foods. On one such journey, Lara is ambushed by a python. I must admit, it gave me nightmares.

What is the most interesting of this book is style in which it’s written, and it’s also the most disconcerting. As a contemporary/historical novel, the book opens with Journal 35. That doesn’t give the reader many clues, until about halfway through the novel, the reader learns that the book is being narrated from a much later period. For me, that took some of the wind out of story. Memories are often clouded and exaggerated.  Toward the end of the novel, without notice, Brouwer shifts from a historical prospective to a contemporary one. The transition is confusing and awkward; it’s like I’m reading another story. I didn’t enjoy it as much as it the historical aspect of the story. Also, this book is labeled as Christian, but it did not feel like a Christian novel. 

I received this book for free from Blogging for Books for this review.

China Dolls

China Dolls by Lisa See  400 pages

 The story’s locale is 1938 San Francisco. Three young Chinese-American (or American-Chinese as I prefer since they were born in the USA) young women meet when they try out as dancers (or ponies) for the opening of the city’s glitzy new nightclub, Forbidden City.

Grace Lee is 17 years old. She arrive is the Bay Area with a few precious dollars, a whole lot of talent and a pair of dancing shoes She still bears the bruises from the savage beating her father gave her. She rather starve to death in an unknown town rather than go back home.

Helen Fong lives in Chinatown in her family’s compound. Her entire family, a traditional Chinese family, lives there. She works in her father’s laundry and any money she gets is given to her father for her brother’s education. Her traditional parents

Ruby Tom is a defiant young woman, ready to take on the world, with a secret she isn’t willing to share.

The girls become fast friends. They have two things in common: they want to break the stereotypical roles that their faces force then into and they want to be stars.  This is their story; the story of hard work, discrimination, love, and betrayal over the years of 1938 to 1948. They work the nightclub circuit, fall in love, and learn more about themselves, and the country they call home, than they ever dreamed possible.

The novel is broken into three section based on a quote from Buddha: the sun, the moon, and the truth.  Inside each section, Grace, Helen, and Ruby take turns telling their story. The problem was sometimes, most of the time the voices were indistinguishable. Don’t get me wrong, it’s a great read, but since each girl’s story is told in first person, I had to keep looking back to remind myself who was talking. The best part of the novel was the backstory surrounding the nightclub-life.

I give China Dolls four out of five stars.