Chidlren's Historical Fiction:

Say, A. (1993). Grandfather's journey. Boston: Houghton Mifflin Company.

Reading level: AD 650L

Interest level: Grades K – 3

 

I read and loved “Tree of Cranes” when I was in elementary school, so I was really interested in “Grandfather’s Journey.” I also just read “Sylvia and Aki” for class, along with “Hiroshima No Pika,” so it seemed an appropriate next step to find and read a Japanese immigrant story. Say’s paintings are gorgeous and sophisticated, giving the work a suitably serious tone. The cover painting appears on the second page of text, above this text: “He wore European clothes for the first time and began his journey on a steamship.” I found this immediately interesting – so rarely do we consider what wearing “Western” clothing is like for outsiders, although our exports of junk clothing and cheap clothing foreign imports have done a lot to make the Western way of dress far more universal than it once was. The text throughout is beautiful and sparse – “The endless farm fields reminded him of the ocean he had crossed.”

 Say takes us along Grandfather’s exploration of the United States, though fields of farms, factory cities, and across iconic landscapes, until he finally settles in the San Francisco area with his wife and daughter. Eventually homesick, Grandfather returns to Japan to lay eyes on “the mountains and rivers of his childhood.” His daughter marries and has a son of her own, Say, who Grandfather regales with stories of “the mountains and rivers of California,” for which he’s grown homesick. “But a war began. Bombs fell from the sky and scattered our lives like leaves in a storm.” The war destroys Grandfather’s home, driving the family back to his boyhood village. Grandfather still longed to see California, but never did; this detail is both heartbreaking and realistic. Say immigrates when he’s an adult, but still misses “the mountains and rivers of his childhood.” The story ends with “I think I know my grandfather now. I miss him very much.” As much as this story is about immigration, it’s also about the human tendency towards nostalgia.

Children's Historical Fiction: Hiroshima No Pika

Maruki, T. (1980). Hiroshima no pika. New York: Lothrop, Lee & Shepard Books.

Reading level: AD620L

Interest level: Grades K - 2

  

I’m going to acknowledge immediately that this emotional, difficult work would be almost impossible to use in the classroom at any level. There’s a set of nipples right on the cover, and the naked mother in question is surrounded by orange fire. Inside, there is page after page has similarly upsetting imagery, and some is worse: burnt, nude bodies populate several frames (including presumably dead infants), and the reader isn’t sure sometimes what is blood and what is fire. Of course, this is absolutely and inarguably the only responsible way to illustrate the aftermath of a nuclear bomb; anything else is betrayal. Like a little baby, I cried when I read this book. The story follow Mii an her family as they attempt to survive Little Boy and its aftermath. As they enjoyed the rare treat of a sweet potato breakfast, the great Flash shot through their home. Mii’s mother carries her badly injured father on her back all the way to the beaches outside Hiroshima, where they collapse and lay spent for four days. Mii’s family survives the Flash, but her growth is permanently stunted and her father eventually grows sick from radiation poisoning and dies. While this book is just too much for most classrooms, it really drives home the devastation caused by Fat Man and Little Boy, and rightly tarnishes the Allie’s hero victory. I read it alongside “Sylvia and Aki,” so that’s probably why I blubbered so hard.

Children's Historical Fiction: Crow Call

Lowry, L., & Ibatoulline, B. (2009). Crow call. New York: Scholastic Press.

Reading level: AD750L

Interest level: Grades K 

Lowry of “The Giver” fame recalls a trip hunting she took with her father to craft a similar story, featuring a young girl named Liz and her father, who has just returned from “the war.” The artist Ibatoulline renders a perfect sepia-toned memory, slightly fuzzy, and just sweeter and sadder than the event actually was. During Liz’s hunting trip, she wonders aloud about the crows they came to murder (get it, murder of crows, hyuk, hyuk), saying “They might have babies to take care of. Baby crows.” This moment feels authentic, especially to someone like me who isn’t a fan of hunting, and it’s nice to see Liz’s character reveal this worry in the face of all the effort she’s gone through to be a tomboy with her father. Even though Liz and her father come to an understanding about the problems presented by the crows and their grown babies that eat at their crops, Liz’s father ultimately shows mercy to the pests. As Lowry explains in the Afterward, “But parents and children groping towards understanding each other – that happens to everyone. And so this story is not really just my story, but everyone’s.” In the classroom, you could read this book and then students could write about their own favorite memories with their families.