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JULIE OTSUKA'S QUIETLY DISTURBING NOVEL opens with a woman reading a sign in a post office window. It is Berkeley, California, the spring of 1942. Pearl Harbor has been attacked, the war is on, and though the precise message on the sign is not revealed, its impact on the woman who reads it is immediate and profound. It is, in many ways she cannot yet foresee, a sign of things to come.


  LEAVING THINGS BEHIND
 If you were forced to move to an internment camp, what would you take with you? Each branch will have trunks, much like the ones used by the internees. Write your suggestion on a paper crane and put it in the trunk.


"GROWING UP IN MY FAMILY, there was so much silence about what happened during WWII. I remember my mother telling me that when she came back to California from ‘camp’ in 1945, none of her classmates asked her where she had been for the last three and a half years. And so it was as if the internment had never happened. She would be so happy to know that her story—in fictional form (WHEN THE EMPEROR WAS DIVINE)—is now being read by so many. I am very much looking forward to my visit to Loudoun County and hearing about your lives as well—because everyone has a story to tell.” 

MEET THE AUTHOR!
Wednesday, October 3, 7:00 pm
Cascades Library
Book signing to follow

Learn more about Julie Otsuka


“ALWAYS HE WOULD REMEMBER THE DUST. It was soft and white and chalky, like talcum powder. Only the alkaline made your skin burn. It took your voice away. The dust got into your shoes. Your hair. Your pants. Your mouth. Your bed. Your dreams.”    –Ten-year-old boy relocated to Utah
 


 
Block 20 Gals leaving for the Outside World. Rohwer Relocation Center. McGehee, Arkansas. 1945. Ryoko Kobayashi Papers.
Castlerock. Tule Lake Relocation Center. Tulelake, California circa 1943. Dorothy and Hiroshi Kaneko Papers.
Friends. Tule Lake Relocation Center. Tulelake, California 1943. Dorothy and Hiroshi Kaneko Papers.
Fire Station. Tule Lake Relocation Center. Tulelake, California. Circa 1943. Dorothy and Hiroshi Kaneko Papers.
Friends. Tule Lake Relocation Center. Tulelake, California 1943. Dorothy and Hiroshi Kaneko Papers.



1book 1community is a countywide reading program that promotes community dialog and understanding through the shared experience of reading and discussing the same book.

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