- The gorgeous cover – and also after reading another book with similar themes, I wanted to read more about the Japanese camps during WWII
I also recommend:
- Hotel on the Corner of Bitter and Sweet by Jamie Ford
Summary from GoodReads:
“Camp Nine beautifully captures a sense of time and place that resonates with authenticity. It shows an intimate familiarity with the internment camp at Rohwer-how the camp came to be situated in such a remote part of Arkansas, life within the camp, and the feelings of the Japanese Americans held captive there, as well as what life was like in the 1940s for the locals outside. It is a perspective that has never been presented. I love this book and recommend it as a must-read.”
-Delphine Hirasuna, author of The Art of Gaman: Arts and Crafts from the Japanese American Internment Camps, 1942 – 1946
My Review:
For such a small book (151 pages), this one sure packs a punch.
I know very little about the camps created here in the states for the Japanese after Pearl Harbor. But over the last year, I’ve been reading more fiction about the horrible treatment not only received by the Japanese, but other immigrants during that time period (Also, see Lost in Shangri La by Mitchell Zuckoff).
This book tells a fictional story of “Camp Nine”, based on a camp that was located in the authors hometown (name changed), and based on real life characters. It’s heart-breaking, inspiring, and eye-opening – three things that make up a powerful book. However, it’s such a quiet story that the full impact didn’t even hit me until I’d set it down and thought about it for a while, a fact that makes me shake my head in wonder. I do love it when a story creeps up on you like that.
While I enjoyed reading about Chess and her mother, David and Henry Matsui and some of the other interesting characters in the book, my attention was very much captured by Cottonmouth Willie. Schiffer does a beautiful job building up this quiet, background character and giving him a voice that sings as beautifully as his music appears to. When describing his style of blues, I could hear it in my head – and as a musician, something like that is invaluable to me.
This would be a fantastic book to give any history buffs in your life. It’s unusual, very unique, and enlightening, to be sure.
About the Author
For more reviews on Camp Nine by Vivienne Schiffer, please follow the book tour.
Hi, Lydia! Thank you so much for reading Camp Nine and for your lovely comments. I’m a musician too, and it always struck me that growing up in the Delta, I never appreciated how important a part it played in American music. It was only after I moved away from home that I realized it. And I think that may be the central theme of Camp Nine: you can never really understand your home until you see it through the eye of strangers. And Willie is my favorite character, too! Vivienne
Thank you for stopping by Vivienne! I could tell through your writing that Willie held a special place for you =)
I’m so glad you enjoyed this one – thanks for being on the tour! I’m featuring your review on TLC’s Facebook page today. Maybe our readers will take your suggestion and buy it for a history buff on their holiday shopping list.
I hope so! It’s such an unassuming book, but so incredibly good.
Another wonderful review for this book; it’s obviously very special and I’m so looking forward to reading it.
You might also enjoy One Fourteenth of an Elephant by Ian Denys Peek: a memoir of life and death on the Burma-Thailand Railway.
If you get a chance here’s my review of it http://teddyree-theeclecticreader.blogspot.com/2008/01/view-all-my-reviews.html
Oh! I’ll read your review when I get home – that sounds fantastic though, I love witty titles like that =)
I find that quite often the books that “creep up on me” are the ones that I keep thinking back to afterwards: I love it when that happens.