 | Pearl Author: Smith, Sherri L. | |
| Price: $10.65 | ||
Summary:
Amy is a thirteen-year-old Japanese-American girl who lives in Hawaii. When her great-grandmother falls ill, Amy travels to visit family in Hiroshima for the first time. But this is 1941. When the Japanese navy attacks Pearl Harbor, it becomes impossible for Amy to return to Hawaii. Conscripted into translating English radio transmissions for the Japanese army, Amy struggles with questions of loyalty and fears about her family amidst rumors of internment camps in America. Graphic novel format.
| Illustrator: | Norrie, Christine |
| Accelerated Reader Information: Interest Level: MG+ Reading Level: 2.60 Points: .5 Quiz: 553575 |
Reviews:
Kirkus Reviews (+) (07/01/24)
School Library Journal (00/09/24)
Booklist (+) (07/01/24)
The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books (+) (00/09/24)
The Hornbook (+) (00/09/24)
Full Text Reviews:
Booklist - 07/01/2024 *Starred Review* Her revered great-grandmother gravely ill, 13-year-old Japanese American Amy travels alone from her birthplace in Hawaii to Hiroshima. Just as she’s growing to know and cherish her Japanese family, Pearl Harbor is bombed. Forced to become an army translator, with her parents and baby brother interned back in the U.S., Amy’s loyalties are grievously torn. Though injured and despondent after Hiroshima’s bombing, she clings to the words of her wise sosobo, a daring pearl-diver in her youth: survive and thrive. Multi-award-winning author Smith evokes an authentic first-person voice to etch Amy’s conflicting emotions with compelling immediacy. Acclaimed illustrator Norrie’s semi-realistic art, rendered with bold pencil line over washes of gray-blue and black, masterfully conveys the terrible realities of this war-torn world—especially powerful in wordless panels depicting Amy’s anguished struggle in the horrific aftermath of the bomb—as well as nuanced moments of tenderness, sorrow, or enlightenment. A thing of great beauty and wonder growing as a response to friction and injury, a pearl is an inspired, indelible metaphor for this luminous, poignant coming-of-age tale set against harrowing, heart-wrenching real life events. - Copyright 2024 Booklist.
