Reviews
Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II by Daniel James Brown
bri_noyes1's review
5.0
Wow wow wow. This was a masterpiece. Beautiful, well-researched, heartbreaking, frustrating, redeeming, horrifying, and inspiring. I thought I knew this part of our history better. I did not. I’m better for having read this.
shannonwest8's review against another edition
emotional
hopeful
inspiring
reflective
tense
medium-paced
4.75
juliana_aldous's review
5.0
I walked into my local library in Little Boston and as I was checking out the librarian asked if I had read enough books over the summer to qualify for the adult summer reading program.
Hell yeah, you bet I read enough.
I was awarded the choice of picking a free book and I chose Daniel James Brown's book Facing the Mountain: A True Story of American Heroes in the World. I'm so glad to have stumbled upon this excellent book about the Japanese American internment camps and the young men who despite all the hate thrown at them showed up and punched the Nazis and helped liberate Europe.
The sadness in reading this book is the realization of how far we have not come on our own soil.
In the epilogue, Brown quoted a letter from Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt about attacks against returning Japanese American families to their communities, "These disgraceful actions almost make you believe that a lot of our Americans have a streak of Nazi in them."
I like to hold on to this quote from the author also in the epilogue, "In the end, they helped us win for us a far better world than the one in which they found themselves when Japanese bombers first appeared over Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. Now, more than a generation later, it is up to us to cherish and protect what they won, to devote ourselves yet again to the principles they defended, to surmount our own mountains of trouble, to keep moving upward together on the long slope of our shared destiny."
Hell yeah, you bet I read enough.
I was awarded the choice of picking a free book and I chose Daniel James Brown's book Facing the Mountain: A True Story of American Heroes in the World. I'm so glad to have stumbled upon this excellent book about the Japanese American internment camps and the young men who despite all the hate thrown at them showed up and punched the Nazis and helped liberate Europe.
The sadness in reading this book is the realization of how far we have not come on our own soil.
In the epilogue, Brown quoted a letter from Truman to Eleanor Roosevelt about attacks against returning Japanese American families to their communities, "These disgraceful actions almost make you believe that a lot of our Americans have a streak of Nazi in them."
I like to hold on to this quote from the author also in the epilogue, "In the end, they helped us win for us a far better world than the one in which they found themselves when Japanese bombers first appeared over Pearl Harbor on the morning of December 7, 1941. Now, more than a generation later, it is up to us to cherish and protect what they won, to devote ourselves yet again to the principles they defended, to surmount our own mountains of trouble, to keep moving upward together on the long slope of our shared destiny."
rogerjpatterson's review
3.0
This book lacks the compelling narrative arc that Brown's earlier book, Boys in the Boat, but is a valuable telling of the stories of Japanese -- both service men and those who did not serve -- during World War II. It leaves me with a deeper understanding of the consequences of the country's treatment of Japanese Americans, and the admirable values they carried with them into and out of the situation.
adamcshanks's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
4.0
rachel_reads_regularly's review
challenging
dark
emotional
informative
inspiring
sad
tense
medium-paced
5.0
pamiverson's review
4.0
What happened to Japanese-Americans during World War ll – the immediate suspicions after Pearl Harbor (which was merely an intensification of the racism that already existed), internment camps, other imprisonments for protesting unfair actions, then the 442nd all Japanese-American troop of soldiers. Personal stories make it all more real. Not a fan of war stories, but this one was important. Good to know the later lives of those who survived – trauma and resilience. 4.5
afro8921's review
5.0
I figured I would love this book as much as I loved "The Boys in the Boat: Nine Americans and Their Epic Quest for Gold at the 1936 Berlin Olympics". I was right. I learned so much about Hawaii and Japanese immigration to Hawaii. I also learned about the internment camps and why some Japanese men in these camps enlisted in the army of a country that didn't value them.