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Living in New York City, Danny Crane, 11, and his best friend Finn were always in trouble. Danny's father had skipped out before he was born, so his mother worked as a nurse by day and cleaned offices at night to support them and was often not home. There are just too many kids in Finn's family for anyone to keep an eye on him The two boys skip school, sneak into the movies, and pretty soon, they were hanging out with gangster Earl Gasky.
So, in late1941, Danny's mother takes a nursing job at the hospital at Hickam Air Force base on Oahu, Hawaii. Danny hasn't been living in Hawaii for very long before he hatches a plan to stowaway on a ship bound for San Francisco on December 7th, and from there, he plans to cross the country riding the rails back to Finn and the life he loves and wants.
On the morning of December 6th, Danny meets his new neighbors when toddler Aki Sudo wanders into the Cranes backyard. The Sudos are a family of Japanese descent that had been born in Hawaii. And Aki Sudo may only have been 3 years old, but he knew every plane the Americans had in their Air Force, thanks to the detailed drawings his fisherman father drew for him.
Danny likes the Sudos, but he is still determined to get back to Finn and NYC. Yet, on the morning of December 7th, Danny is having a hard time getting out of bed and setting his plan in motion. Thinking about his mother and how she will feel when she discovers him gone, Danny is jolted out of bed by little Aki's cries. Planes, swarms of them, are coming and they aren't American. Suddenly, as the two boys are heading to the Sudo home, they hear loud explosions followed by fire and smoke. Pearl Harbor is under attack.
Returning Aki to his mother, Danny decides he needs to get the Hickam, to find his own mother. But along the way, there is another round of bombing, and shooting. Then, Danny meets Mack, a lieutenant and pilot of a B-17. Mack likes Mrs. Crane, but Danny was resentful of that. Now, though, with a bullet wound to his arm, he and Danny try to make their way to Hickam together.
But, will the two be able to survive the rain of bullets and bombs the Japanese pilots are unleashing on all of Pearl Harbor?
I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor is the 4th book in this popular, action packed I Survived series for boys about boys living in different time periods and facing different historical disasters and making them real coming of age stories. And, like the others, it won't let the reader down. There is plenty of real historical information couched in the fictional story of Danny and since Danny more or less sees the attack on Pearl Harbor from a distance, the descriptions of it are realistic, but not so graphic they will upset the age appropriate reader.
One of the side issues that Lauren Tarshis addresses in this particular story is how easy it was for boys like Danny to fall into the wrong kind of life. Danny is at an age when friends can be all important, so the reader sees how he is torn between staying with his mother and his loyalty to his friend and partner in crime Finn. These two friends were on their way to being in real trouble when Mrs. Crane moved Danny to Hawaii. Juvenile delinquency was a problem back then because so many parents, like Mrs. Crane, had to work long hours, often at two jobs. Doing little things for someone like Earl Gasky was just the beginning. Both boys are at an age when they could have gone either way and I wondered what happened to Finn, left in NYC.
Since
I Survived the Bombing of Pearl Harbor is a work of historical fiction, the author has included lots of back matter for further exploration. There is a lengthy Q&A about the actual attack, a Pearl Harbor Time Line, Pearl Harbor facts and resources for reading other books about kids caught in the bombing of December 7, 1941.
In addition, the publisher of the I Survived series, Scholastic, has put a Teacher's Guide online that is compatible with Common Core State Standards and it can be downloaded
HERE
This book is recommended for readers age 7+
This book was purchased for my personal library
The Lucky Baseball is a highly entertaining and educational novel about a young Japanese-American boy whose dream is to become a famous baseball player. Set during the time of the war between the US and Japan, the book teaches about that dark era of our time while proving young readers with a fast-paced, interesting plot and a strong and sympathetic protagonist.
This middle-grade historical novel begins on the eve of the war. Our young hero, 12-year old Harry Yakamoto, lives in Seven Cedars, California with his father and grandparents in an apartment above their restaurant. In spite of the regular prejudice he encounters as a Japanese-American, he lives a reasonably happy life doing what he enjoys most: playing baseball and spending time with his family and friends. His biggest dream is to become a professional baseball player one day, but he has a series of obstacles. For one, his father expects him to run the family restaurant one day, and is not pleased when he sees Harry practicing ball too much. To add to that, he's not able to join the teams in town because a lot of the kids--especially a bully named Tony Rossi--are prejudiced against his background. In spite of all this, Harry tries to make the best of life.
Then his life turns upside down when the US declares war on Japan and he and his family are forced to relocate to a camp 200 miles away in the middle of the desert. There, his living quarters are reduced to a cold and dusty, small room he has to share with his family. Dirty latrines, poor food, rude guards, and another bully are some of his other new problems. But the fire of baseball eternally blazes in his heart and he soon forms a team and becomes the captain. Will Harry live his dream? Will he go back to Seven Cedars and live like a normal American without the evils of prejudice?
I'm not a fan of baseball, but I have to say I loved reading this book. The story and especially the protagonist drew me in from the beginning. Harry is a special character with a distinct voice and personality. He has his flaws, but is brave and pure at heart. He's the kind of young hero readers like to root for. The plot moves fairly quickly without a lot of exposition or description. I felt transported back in time and learned a lot about the camps.
The Lucky Baseball offers a glimpse into the evils of war and the injustice of prejudice. What I especially like is that the author doesn't lecture or preach; the message comes through from the action.
The Lucky Baseball is 160 pages and is geared at grades 5 to 7. If you have a middle grader who loves baseball, this is a story he or she will surely enjoy. It is also excellent reading material for classrooms, as it offers many subjects for discussion. Highly recommended.
Today is the 70th anniversary of the attack on Pearl Harbor and America's entrance into World War II
...a day that will live in infamy
By:
Elizabeth Varadan,
on 7/31/2011
Blog:
Elizabeth Varadan's Fourth Wish
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While reading my way through the recuperation from my foot surgery, I read a wonderful memoir, Kiyo's Story, by Kiyo Sato. The subtitle is A Japanese-American Family's Quest for the American Dream. Originally the title was Dandelion Through the Crack, suggesting how the spirit can bloom, despite unbelievable adversity. This book won the 2008 William Saroyan Prize for Non Fiction and should be required reading in high school history classes to give young people an understanding of how political hysteria can sweep a nation into unthinkable behavior.
Kiyo was nineteen when she and her family, as well all of the Japanese -American communities on the West Coast, were sent to an interment camp; in the Satos' case, in Arizona. Prior to the bombing of Pearl Harbor, there was already a mindset in place: Japanese immigrants were not allowed to become citizens or to own land. Their children, however, were citizens by reason of birth. But following Pearl Harbor, and Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, anyone with 1/16 or more Japanese ancestry was suddenly declared a "non-alien". Curfews were established. They were not allowed to travel more than a five mile radius from their homes. Finally they were rounded up, and forced to abandon their homes, taking only whatever they could carry on the train to an interment camp. The Sato family, like neighboring families, were fruit farmers; their fields would be untended. Some farms were simply taken over by squatters.
Kiyo Sato first acquaints the reader with her parents' lives before this tragedy. Her father, Shinji, left Japan as a boy because of extreme poverty in his village. He labored for farmers in California, returned to Japan to wed a pretty nurse, and saved enough money that, through the help of others who were citizens, he could obtain a parcel of land. (At the time, Japanese immigrants were not allowed to own land.)
Kiyo's mother, Tomomi, worked side by side with Shinji in the fields, as did Kiyo and, later, her eight brothers and sisters. Slowly they brought the barren acreage to life until their produce was in demand and they had markets as far away as Canada. The
Today is the 69th anniversary of Pearl Harbor day, the day that the Japanese empire attacked the American base at Pearl Harbor, on the island of Oahu, Hawaii and American officially entered World War II. In his speech, President Roosevelt called the attack a “…date which will live in infamy.” For high school student Adam Pelko, it was a day that started like any other and a day that ended like no other.
Adam has moved around his entire life because his father is a lieutenant in the navy, and had recently been transferred to the USS Arizona at Pearl Harbor. It is the first time Adam has been able to go to a regular high school, not a base school and once again, he must make new friends. The two friends he makes are Davi Mori, a Japanese-American boy and Martin Kahahawai, a Hawaiian. However, Adam’s father doesn’t want him to be friends with a Japanese kid since war with Japan is imminent. He reminds Adam that what they do, including who their friends are, reflects not only on them as a military family, but also on the United States Navy. His father firmly believes that Japanese loyalties would not be towards America, and that even Japanese-Americans can’t be trusted if war comes.
But Adam has already made a date to go fishing with Davi on Sunday. Saturday evening his father is called back to the Arizona until Sunday afternoon to cover for the duty officer, who had a family emergency. With his father gone, Adam decides to meet Davi and give him some excuse about not being able to go fishing, but when Martin shows up too, Adam loses his nerve. The boys ride their bikes over to the naval base at Pearl Harbor, slip under a fence, find a rowboat and take it out into the harbor to fish.
They stop rowing within sight of the battleships docked around Ford Island in the harbor. Before they even have a chance to start fishing, they hear the whine of planes. At first, the boys don’t think the planes and explosions are real, that maybe they are for a movie or just a mistake, even after a hot blast batters them. But as more and more bombs fall, Adam realizes that it is a real attack and the planes are Japanese. And when he sees Davi waving his arms and cheering, Adam suddenly begins to suspect that his father was right about not trusting the Japanese:
Why was Davi cheering? What was he doing? Signaling them? Yes, signaling them! He was Japanese. Japanese first! Who had said to come to Pearl Harbor to “fish”? Who had “found” the boat? Who had gotten them out here? “Dirty Jap!” Adam dragged Davi down. He wanted to get him. Kill him. Drown him. (pg44)
Martin breaks up the fight and the boys start rowing towards shore, but when Adam looks over towards his dad’s ship, he sees the USS Arizona bounce in the air, split apart, start burning and finally sink (it sank in 9 minutes.)
Almost immediately a plane flies over the rowboat and starts shooting at them. The boys are blown out of the boat, and Martin is badly injured with a long splinter of wood through his chest. Davi and Adam manage to get him back to shore and into a Red Cross car, but not before a soldier attacks Davi with the butt of his gun, yelling "I got a Jap!" (pg 50) With Davi and Martin in the car along with wounded soldiers, Adam rides on the running board, holding on to the center post of the car, but is thrown from it when the car swerves to avoid going into the harbor.
Adam finds himself alone, returns to the rowboat and is mistaken for a sailor by an officer who demands he be rowed out to the USS West Virginia. Adam
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| USS California sinking on December 7th, 1941 |
Early on Sunday December 7th, 1941 Japanese fighters attacked targets on the island of Oahu. The fighters chose as many 'high value targets' as they could, and ended up sinking and damaging numerous ships and planes. 2, 386 Americans were killed and 1,139 were wounded.
This event made a huge impression on Americans, and many books have been written about that fateful day, including some excellent titles for young readers. On the
TTLG Attack on Pearl Harbor feature page you will find reviews of several titles, both fiction and nonfiction, that tell the story of the attack on Pearl Harbor very well.
No words. So many lives, young lives.
Today, December 7, is National Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day, a day to honor those who fought and died 68 years ago in Hawaii. Please take time to thank a veteran or active soldier, and learn more about how these brave men and women have shaped our country.
Read more:
Captured Off Guard (Graphic Flash)
Pearl Harbor (We the People)
The Attack on Pearl Harbor (Graphic Library)
Pearl Harbor: Day of Infamy (Snapshots in History)
Hi, Mayra,
I'm so glad you enjoyed The Lucky Baseball. I really had fun writing Harry's story. I also have fun talking to kids at schools about using real events in history as the basis for fiction. Teachers can find out more at my author site at http://www.suzannelieurance.com
Thanks so much, Mayra for the review.
Happy holidays!
Suzanne