The Bracelet by Yoshiko Uchida, illustrated by Joanna Yardley (Philomel Books, 1993) recounts the story of a Japanese American girl named Emi. It is 1942 and Emi is about to leave her home in San Francisco for an internment camp further inland. It is an uncertain and precarious time. Just before Emi’s departure, her friend Laurie Madison shows up at the door with a gift. It is a heart bracelet. Emi receives the gift gladly, swearing that she will “never, ever take it off.” But in the hustle and bustle of the move, Emi loses the bracelet and for the first time, despite all the other difficulties she has faced with her family during their ordeal, she wants to cry. Will she recover the bracelet? Or rather, what will she do if she doesn’t?
I read this story to my daughter, expecting a certain sort of ending and getting another one, and this is was what surprised me about this book. Emi has an epiphany about her lost bracelet that is both simple and profound. Objects are not the repositories of our memories; our minds are. Despite the loss of the bracelet, Emi knows that she will never forget the friendship she had with Laurie and this is an important truth for Emi to realize about herself and her situation. Illustrator Joanna Yardley has done a wonderful job of depicting a very realistic-looking Emi as a shy and contemplative girl; I was especially struck by an image of her face in which the details are very fine, right down to Emi’s eyelashes.
Reading this book gave me an opportunity to explain to my daughter that Emi’s experience was similar to those of her grandfather’s and my great aunt’s. She herself made the connection and I elaborated a little on the differences between the Canadian and American experiences. I knew about Yoshiko Uchida’s childrens’ books on the topic from before but this book made me want to seek out more by her!