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A review by yonnyan
The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559, Mirror Lake Internment Camp, California, 1942 by Barry Denenberg
1.0
This book was written by a white male and is a fictional account of what a Japanese child, Ben Uchida, went through during World War II after being forced to relocate to a Japanese Internment Camp.
While some of details regarding the internment camp experience are realistic, the book overall is very uncomfortable--not because of the subject matter, but because of how it's written--and felt somewhat problematic.
The language and descriptions used are unnatural and illustrate that someone who has little knowledge about the subject matter wrote this book. I also felt that the emotions being portrayed in the book were feelings that people expect or romanticise internment camp victims to have undergone. The emotional, psychological, and haunting experiences that children living in internment camps underwent are horrific, to say the least. The book cushions the actuality of this atrocity to make it more accessible for children.
While this is supposed to be the journal of a kid, its prose is more akin to someone who is much older, making it unrealistic in terms of proper perspective. My entire time reading it, I felt I was reading about the experiences of an adolescent who's sixteen years of age or older. It created an incongruity between what I was reading and what I was expecting from the narrative given the synopsis and other information regarding it.
The back of the book contains historical notes and references to the sources that the author used in research for writing the book, which had me stupefied. This book was horridly disappointing to read, to be blunt. I feel that if the research involved was taken and utilised to write a non-fiction account of this period of World War II, it would have been much, much better as the author's historical information was not nearly as terrible as the fictionalised tale itself; in fact, that was the most interesting aspect of the entire thing.
This happened. It is a very real part of history where an entire race of people were prejudiced against and dehumanised as individuals for being Japanese during a time of war. It was an obscene act of hatred. It shouldn't be softened or written in a romanticised manner, which is how The Journal of Ben Uchida came off. This event was a godawful fucked-up, racist thing that was damaging beyond anyone's comprehension, aside from those who suffered through it.
Teach children the reality of what happens in wars. Don't cushion them or protect them from its ugliness. Children are far stronger and capable of handling difficult subject matter than they are given credit for. The best way to educate against and fight racism and hatred, the best way to advocate for peace so shit like this doesn't happen again, is by being honest about it. Not by making it less than it is, like this book does, unfortunately.
1 outta 5.
While some of details regarding the internment camp experience are realistic, the book overall is very uncomfortable--not because of the subject matter, but because of how it's written--and felt somewhat problematic.
The language and descriptions used are unnatural and illustrate that someone who has little knowledge about the subject matter wrote this book. I also felt that the emotions being portrayed in the book were feelings that people expect or romanticise internment camp victims to have undergone. The emotional, psychological, and haunting experiences that children living in internment camps underwent are horrific, to say the least. The book cushions the actuality of this atrocity to make it more accessible for children.
While this is supposed to be the journal of a kid, its prose is more akin to someone who is much older, making it unrealistic in terms of proper perspective. My entire time reading it, I felt I was reading about the experiences of an adolescent who's sixteen years of age or older. It created an incongruity between what I was reading and what I was expecting from the narrative given the synopsis and other information regarding it.
The back of the book contains historical notes and references to the sources that the author used in research for writing the book, which had me stupefied. This book was horridly disappointing to read, to be blunt. I feel that if the research involved was taken and utilised to write a non-fiction account of this period of World War II, it would have been much, much better as the author's historical information was not nearly as terrible as the fictionalised tale itself; in fact, that was the most interesting aspect of the entire thing.
This happened. It is a very real part of history where an entire race of people were prejudiced against and dehumanised as individuals for being Japanese during a time of war. It was an obscene act of hatred. It shouldn't be softened or written in a romanticised manner, which is how The Journal of Ben Uchida came off. This event was a godawful fucked-up, racist thing that was damaging beyond anyone's comprehension, aside from those who suffered through it.
Teach children the reality of what happens in wars. Don't cushion them or protect them from its ugliness. Children are far stronger and capable of handling difficult subject matter than they are given credit for. The best way to educate against and fight racism and hatred, the best way to advocate for peace so shit like this doesn't happen again, is by being honest about it. Not by making it less than it is, like this book does, unfortunately.
1 outta 5.