I have never read a book written in this way before, but I really enjoyed it. As I read I marked several pages that held passages that astonished and interested me. The government tells them that they are moving them to save them and to get them out of their way so they can fight better. In a way this sounds ok, but then you realize that the government itself burned some of the villages and ended up taking worse care of its own citizens than it did of German prisoners-of-war. I was really let down to find out that our own government would do something like that. I knew internment camps were bad places to be, but I did not know they were worse than POW camps for the enemy. I was also dissappointed to find out in the end that our country was giving more money to help people recover in other parts of the world than it was to help our own citizens recover, just because of the prejudice toward an indigenous people.
This book helps us understand a very sad story even though the characters in it are not actual people who lived in that time. Their experiences represent what the real people would have experienced. We learn about the discrimination, the hopelessness felt by them, the struggle to find jobs, the sickness, and so many other struggles. We also learn about how they tried to keep some of their traditions like the crafts they made with the children, the baskets that the old woman showed them how to make, and the dances that the boys practiced. This book is a great way to bring children into the story of what happened in the Aleutian Islands. Through this kind of reading they not only recieve facts about what went on but can understand the emotions of the situations too. This allows the students to have a deeper understanding and build caring and empathy for those different than themselves.
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4 comments:
Thank you for recognizing the prejudice that the Aleuts experienced-they are an Indigenous people of the United States of America. They are the USA, just as you and I are. How does this happen? What does fear have to do with it? Did fear override justice?
I also think that this book helped me and others realized what happened to the Aleuts during WW2. This book is so serious but because it is fiction, it makes it is easier for children to read. The act did happen but the people that you get to know, weren't really real. This might make the subject a little easier for children.
I had never read a book written this way either. Throughout the book i also marked passages that interested me. I too learned a lot from this book and think that it would be a great way to introduce this topic to children. It is dissapointing that something this awful has been hidden from us.
I agree with you in that as I was reading I to found myself marking several pages that just seemed so real and captured the essence of what this story was all about. I also agree that it is hard to accept the fact that POW camps seemed just as bad at internment camps, I mean what was our government thinking this is now way to treat our own people. I am really glad you pointed that out.
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