So Far From The Sea

by Eve Bunting, Chris K. Soentpiet (Illustrator)

Laura Iwasaki's father was interned along with thousands of other American citizens of Japanese heritage during World War II. When her grandfather died he was buried in the internment camp and now that the family is moving this will probably be their last visit to Grandfather's grave.

Genres: Picture Books, Historical Fiction, Childrens, World War II, Historical, Japan, Cultural

32 pages, Paperback

First published April 20, 1998

About the author

Also known as Evelyn Bolton and A.E. Bunting.

Anne Evelyn Bunting, better known as Eve Bunting, is an author with more than 250 books. Her books are diverse in age groups, from picture books to chapter books, and topic, ranging from Thanksgiving to riots in Los Angeles. Eve Bunting has won several awards for her works.

Bunting went to school in Ireland and grew up with storytelling. In Ireland, “There used to be Shanachies… the shanachie was a storyteller who went from house to house telling his tales of ghosts and fairies, of old Irish heroes and battles still to be won. Maybe I’m a bit of a Shanchie myself, telling stories to anyone who will listen.” This storytelling began as an inspiration for Bunting and continues with her work.

In 1958, Bunting moved to the United States with her husband and three children. A few years later, Bunting enrolled in a community college writing course. She felt the desire to write about her heritage. Bunting has taught writing classes at UCLA. She now lives in Pasadena, California.

Reviews

[A. L. · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was an amazing book about the internment of America’s Japanese-American citizens during WWII. The writing was gorgeous, with flowing, poetic language. Being written for children, the author did a truly superior job in explaining the awfulness, the cruelty, the absolute wrongness of the locking up of innocent citizens, without ever getting graphic, or too gruesome for small readers. The most magnificent part of the storytelling here, is the artwork. Soentpiet’s art is capable of telling the story entirely on its own. Pictures from the modern day (the 70’s when the narrator is a young child) are in color, while the pictures from WWII are in black and white. The illustrations are vivid and rich in details. A teacher could create entire lessons, both history and literature, from just this book. There is just so much here, tucked between the two covers.

This is truly a masterpiece of children’s literature.

[Claire · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautifully written story about an incredibly important topic—the forced relocation of Japanese-Americans to internment camps during World War II.

The story is told from the perspective of seven-year-old Laura, making the yearly pilgrimage with her family to visit her grandfather's grave at the remains of the Manzanar War Relocation Camp. The most poignant moment of the story for me was discovering why Laura has brought her father's old Cub Scout neckerchief to lay on her grandfather's grave.

And of course, the illustrations can make or break a picture book. Chris. K. Soenpiet's evocative watercolor illustrations alternate between vibrant color to portray Laura and her family's visit and black-and-white to portray her father's (and grandfather's) relocation and imprisonment.

The only thing that didn't sit well with me was Laura's father's statement that "[s]ometimes in the end there is no right or wrong...it is just a thing that happened long years ago. A thing that cannot be changed." I wonder if that statement is truly indicative of Japanese-Americans who experienced the relocation camps, or if it is merely the author's own interpretation of events.

Regardless, this book is going on my to-buy list!

[Margie · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of my very favorite children's historical fiction books. An incredibly touching story that deals with a family's memories of Manzanar, the Japanese-American relocation camp in California in WWII.

[Susan Siow · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting and poignant with beautiful illustrations.

[Cheryl A. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Caldecott worthy. Now Manzanar has an interpretive center and a few buildings - definitely worth a visit if you live within a few hundred miles. Are any other camps' locations preserved as monuments or heritage sites?

[CanadianReader · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Bunting’s picture book for older children, the Iwasaki family visits Manzanar, a Japanese internment camp near the Sierra Nevada mountains in eastern California. Seven-year-old Laura and her five year-old brother Thomas’s father and his family were sent here with thousands of other Japanese Americans during World War II, after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. It is here in this barren desert place so far from the sea that the children’s grandfather, once a prosperous tuna fisherman, died of pneumonia. The children’s mother was also interned as a child—at another, colder camp in Wyoming.

The Iwasakis have travelled to Manzanor before. This trip, their fifth, will likely be their last, as the family is moving from California to Boston, Massachusetts. They are paying their last respects to Grandfather, who is buried in the small cemetery near a monument to the dead.

This beautifully illustrated book, set in 1972, offers a glimpse of what this place was like. Artist Chris K. Soentpiet switches from colour to black and white images whenever Laura and Thomas’s father talks about the past. There once were barbed wire fences here, towers with searchlights, guards with guns, and multiple wooden barracks. Little remains now.

Before the family’s visit ends, Laura places her father’s bright yellow Boy Scout neckerchief near the monument. She brought it for grandfather. Now held by a piece of wood, it billows in the wind, like a boat’s sail might on the sea. When government officials had come in the 1940s to remove Grandfather and his family from their home, Grandfather had told his son, the children’s father, to put on his Boy Scout uniform to show them he was a real American. It had had no effect.

This a meditative, serious, and quite touching story. It provides a gentle introduction to a sad chapter in both American and Canadian history.

[Nicole · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a beautiful picturebook that depicts a very ugly time in our history. Eve Bunting and Chris Soentpiet’s illustrations and prose blend together well in this somber look at the Japanese Internment Camps that were built after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Laura Iwasaki and her family make the journey one last time to the Manzanar Relocation Camp in California to say goodbye to her grandfather who died there in 1943. The reader is transported from the present to the past with Soentpiet’s graceful balance of full watercolor paintings and pencil drawings. Young readers will be more apt to follow the non-linear narrative with the support of the black and white illustrations. This technique is brilliant and should be used more often for early elementary historical fiction. Bunting includes a factual Afterword that is also useful and should spark more conversations from readers. I was especially astonished to read that 10,000 Japanese Americans were interned in the Manzanar War Relocation Camp in California alone. This tragic historical event seems to be underrepresented in the picturebook genre. Perhaps it is because it occurred so recently in our past or perhaps there is still an element of shame connected to the decisions made in 1942.

[Noor_C1 · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book is about the Japanese who got taken by the Americans. I gave this book 5 stars because it really tells you what it was like in the war and has flashbacks which show you pictures of what it was like. This book is just great because many people have gone through these camps and now anyone who has read this book knows.

[Kristin Nelson · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent book! A reader can learn so much detail about life in the Japanese American internment camps, yet the book does not work too hard to share the facts. The real point of the book is the story, which is filled with emotion. The switch between colored illustrations and black and white is a great tool that helps us be engaged in Laura's father's story and understand it a little bit more.

[Brianna Crall · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eve Bunting never disappoints. This was such a powerful read about Japanese Internment Camps. A great historical fiction to share with children.

[Judy · Rating 4 out of 5]

The story is well-done. Using one family to show the effects of the internment camps on the lives of the Japanese is effective. Alternating images in color (representing the present day - 1972) and black-and-white (representing the back story - 1940s) captures the moods of the place.

Picture books are usually for young audiences, but I'd broach this subject with older kids, or kids whose families lived at the camps.

[Rachel]

A beautiful book for a message but also the craft of writing! Takes us back to when Janpanese were put into internment camps during WWII. It is a good book with historical information and the literacy technique of "back story" telling the story though the father's view from the year's past.

[Matthew · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book does a powerful job of describing the internment camps of WWII with a touching story of a family paying their final respects at their grandfather's grave in the Manzanar Internment camp. It holds great educational value.

[Mrs. Ruigrok · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story is a remembrance of how the Japanese American's were interned during World War II. As a family visits a former internment camp and remembers. This is a part of history that people need to remember.

[Kathy · Rating 3 out of 5]

A family visits a Japanese relocation camp. A good picture book for older children

[Cosette · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing. I'm still wiping tears...

[Karla · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing illustrations by Chris Soentpiet match a poignant story about a dark part of US history in a way that makes it accessible for children. Loved it!

[Alexis Anderson · Rating 5 out of 5]

I had no idea that the U.S. put Japanese American citizens in War Relocation Centers after Pearl Harbor was bombed. I learned a lot from this book, and I highly recommend it.

[Charles · Rating 5 out of 5]

There are many dark features in the history of the United States, slavery with the subsequent Jim Crow rules and the near extermination of the Native Americans are two of the most prominent. One that was less deadly yet just as dark was the roundup of Japanese Americans after the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. In a moment of national hysteria, President Franklin Roosevelt signed Executive Order 9066 to collect all Japanese American and place them in what were de facto concentration camps. This order was made despite no evidence that the people of Japanese ancestry were any threat to the United States. The executive order was ultimately upheld by the United States Supreme Court.
In general, the people that were rounded up lost all their possessions, there are many ugly stories of their neighbors running to pillage their possessions as soon as they boarded the transports. Most real estate the people of Japanese ancestry owned was then taken over by others and when they returned to claim their homes, they were generally unpleasantly rebuffed.
This book revisits that dark time using the plot device of a modern Japanese family visiting the site where the father’s family was interned under 9066. Nearly all of the structures are gone, one of the few remaining is the one they came to see, the cemetery where the father’s father is buried. They place mementos on the grave, including a Cub Scout neckerchief. This had special significance, for the father was told to put on his Cub Scout uniform to greet the soldiers so that they would know that he was an American boy.
Remembering the dark events of the past will always remain one of the best ways to prevent similar events in the future. Therefore, this book is an excellent educational device to demonstrate to modern schoolchildren one of the bad things that happened when there was a hysteria over a group of people that were “different.”

[Rosa Cline · Rating 5 out of 5]

Although the names have been changed in this story; it is a true to life story about what it was like to be 'inprisioned' unfarily during the war. Simply because you were Japanese; the American government felt those that were of Japanese would be of a threat during the war so all families were put in prision camps. Although they were 'regular' families doing what families do. This family is going to a Historic Monument and what is left over of one of the many camps. This one has a cemetery where those that died during 'captivity' were buried and that was their Grandpa. The family is moving across the country and will probably be the last time they ever get to see this camp and their grandpa's grave. But the memories of the "Dad" of the family and his years at the camp as a child will live with them for always. This book was very nicely written and although it was 'sad' was nice to read especially for those of us that doesn't know that much about this time in our History. It's a past that we all need to remember... not just the main families this time frame affected. Very well written.

[Hayden Hanshew · Rating 5 out of 5]

When I started to read the book, I was a little confused about what it was about, until I realized it was about the Japanese American internment camps that happened in the 1940's. Before I going further into the book, I knew that a family was probably going to visit an internment camp. I liked how the illustrations went from color, or the present, to black and white, and that was considered the past. That was pretty cool, and it was nice how it worked with the text to create a nice story. But on some of the pages, the text seemed a little off, and didn't correspond with the illustrations, but it still flowed with the whole story. The main character was very aware of the discrimination that Japanese Americans after WWII when the United States made internment camps. I like that it was put into a children's book, because most american's don't even know about the internment camps, and this way at least they can get aware of this piece of history. But I'm just a little confused about the title and how it's supposed to match the story.

[sayitwithasmile · Rating 5 out of 5]

Gorgeous illustrations and important story. So Far From the Sea tells a super simple story of the Iwasaki family who is visiting the remnants of the Manzanar Japanese Internment camp, where their grandfather is buried. Though the young kids, Laurie and Thomas, never met their grandfather, they hold him in a special place in their heart. Their father and mother share memories of their times in their respective camps and the group leave silk flowers and a family memento on the grave. This picture book does a good job of keeping the story simple for kids and yet giving just enough information to give context to the history. Soentpiet's illustrations are absolutely stunning and his black and white interpretations of the camp are very reminiscent of the photographs of Manzanar at the time.

[Gretchen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Eve Bunting always does a wonderful job taking hard topics and making them easier for younger people to understand. She has done that again in this book by tackling the subject of Japanese internment camps. This would be a great book to read to the class when we are doing our book clubs. Not all of them read about the camps so it would be an introduction and for those who do read about the camps, they would have another perspective and another example to draw from as they are reading. I really like that this book begins in the present and what is there now and then takes us back through flashbacks to what they learned from their elders who were there.

[Sam · Rating 5 out of 5]

Such a magical book. It is an intense look at one Japanese-American families' journey through the generations during WWII Japanese internment camps, with the newest generation celebrating their grandparents' arrival in the US, and their confinement. The way that Chris Soentpiet has drawn the older generation pictures and the newest generation pictures is incredible. He used black and white drawings for a look back into history, but gives the new generation of Japanese Americans bright and bold colors for facing their own future.

[Diane · Rating 4 out of 5]

"I shouldn't be nervous, but I am."

Two children go with their parents, former occupants of Manzanar, to visit the memorial of their grandfather, who died in the camp. Their parents tell the story of how and why the government relocated Japanese Americans to the camps. "There was a lot of anger then. A lot of fear." (This quote gives me chills as it related to our current political environment.)

Gorgeous illustrations

[Maggie Chopra · Rating 3 out of 5]

So far from the sea, has some very good illustrations. I thin the watercolor is just beautiful. The imagery in the book provides a clear picture of what's really going on in the book. The book really starts right off the bat, with showing the barbed wire fence and how it used to look back in the day. That could be a little scary for kids I imagine. It really shows the main little girl's emotions and how they feel during the their last visit to her grandfather's grave

[Marcia · Rating 5 out of 5]

A gorgeously illustrated, moving story. A young girl is moving with her family to Boston. Before they leave, they make one final trip to visit the grave of her grandfather, who died while incarcerated at Manzanar. The books intersperces colored illustrations of the families visit on a cold, windy day, with sepai-toned images from the camp, and the war. Powerful.
I'm not sure how I missed this book published in 1998, but it totally holds up today.

[Tony Pope · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a Georgia Picture Book Award Nominee back around 1999-2000. It was the first time I had ever heard of Japanese internment camps during WW2. Not one time in any of my school history classes was it mentioned. Also, I don’t recall ever hearing about or seeing any documentaries about them. It wasn’t until this book and another one on the older level books on the topic and then documentaries on them started coming out. I’m thankful to have read this book back then…and now once again.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a gorgeous and sad picture book about Manzanar, one of the Japanese Interment camps in the U.S. during World War II. The symbolism of the Cub Scout scarf is most poignant. Looked at from a different angle it reminds the reader of the sea and fishing (the profession of the father in the story).

[Margaret · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a picture book about a fictional family's experience with being sent to Manzanar War Relocation Camp during World War II. It is told from the prospective of the daughter of a man who was a child in the camp and whose father had died while there. The son, now grown, has brought his family back years later to visit his father's grave.