Farewell to Manzanar; A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment

Farewell to Manzanar; A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment

By Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

1 rating 4 reviews 3 followers
Interest LevelReading LevelReading A-ZATOSWord Count
Grades 7 - 10Grades 10 - 9Z6.7n/a
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 other Japanese Americans. Along with searchlight towers and armed guards, Manzanar ludicrously featured cheerleaders, Boy Scouts, sock hops, baton twirling lessons and a dance band called the Jive Bombers who would play any popular song except the  nation's #1 hit: "Don't Fence Me In."



Farewell to Manzanar is the true story of one spirited Japanese-American family's attempt to survive the indignities of forced detention . . . and of a native-born American child who discovered what it was like to grow up behind barbed wire in the United States.


From the Paperback edition.
Publisher: HMH Books for Young Readers
ISBN-13: 9781328742117
ISBN-10: 1328742113
Published on 7/11/2017
Binding: Paperback
Number of pages: 208

Book Reviews (4)

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A true story of Jeanne Wakatsuki. She was living with her family in Long Beach. Their father loved to give orders because he was in the Japanese military. However, then Pearl Harbor was bombed. Jeanne’s life was forever changed. She was sent to a internment camp. Her family and her father were split. The cabins were bare with only two army blankets each, some mattresses and some army clothes. Most that are too big. Jeanne is scared of Chinese people and when they serve her food they think dessert will be better with oranges on top of rice. Jeanne knows that Japanese people only eat rice with savory things. This is the hard and sometimes scary life of Jeanne.

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I honestly think this book is going to be great.I have not read it but it looks great.The fact that it is true blows my mind up!!!

This was actually a pretty decent book.It's about this young Japanese- American girl that lives with her brothers and sisters in Fresno, California.She gets treated different by everybody just because her race is japanese and she looks different.Her family then gets booted out of their home taking barely anything and are forced to get onto a bus to take them to an internment camp.They live an extremely hard life at the internment camp, living in the middle of the desert with wind blowing in their uncomfortable and unbareable living situations.They had to live in things called barracks, which were outside where all the dust could blow in.After a couple years living in these terrible conditions.The girl (Jeanne Watkatsuki Houston) and her family are finally able to move out of it with thousands and thousand of many other innocent Japanese americans who did absolutely no harm to anyone whatsoever.Just like how the african americans were taken as slaves and dubbed as dumb, and stupid, or as property because of race and skin color.Not fair at all.Jeanne goes to school, she has now grown up quite a bit and is no longer the scared, seven year old girl she was when her family got moved to the internment camp.She does batton twirling and other things.She makes friends with a girl and one day wants to join girl scouts.The next day the girl comes back and says no just because Jeanne is Japanese and is different then white people.The story then goes on and Jeanne becomes an adult and has her own kids,the story ends with her taking her kids on a road trip to visit the old,destroyed internment camp where she was basically held prisoner for no reason.It holds a lot of memories for her.I had to read tis book for summer read for English class and then write an essay on it.I really though it was an important book because it has to do with racial unfairness and injustice just because another person is different or their skin is a different color.That is the theme of this book.Overall,it was pretty well written, almost like a biographical kind of book and also historical too.Anyone who likes books or topics about history or world wars 1 or 2 would like this book.