Paper Wishes

Paper Wishes

Lois Sepahban

Publisher

Farrar, Straus and Giroux

Publication Year

2016

ISBN

9780374302160

Pages

192 pages

Genre

realism

Format

novel

Item Type

Fiction

Annotation

Ten-year-old Manami did not realize how peaceful her family's life on Bainbridge Island was until the day it all changed. It's 1942, after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Manami and her family are Japanese American, which means that the government says they must leave their home by the sea and join other Japanese Americans at a prison camp in the desert. Manami is sad to go, but even worse is that they are going to have to give her and her grandfather's dog, Yujiin, to a neighbor to take care of. Manami decides to sneak Yujiin under her coat and gets as far as the mainland before she is caught and forced to abandon Yujiin. She and her grandfather are devastated, but Manami clings to the hope that somehow Yujiin will find his way to the camp and make her family whole again. It isn't until she finds a way to let go of her guilt that Manami can reclaim the piece of herself that she left behind and accept all that has happened to her family.

Grade Level

6-8

Lexile Measure

550L

Diversity Topics

Race & Culture; Bicultural / Mulitcultural; Race discrimination; bicultural / multicultural family; multicultural community; racism; prejudice; segregation; marginalized group of people

Main Character

female child

Race/Ethnicities

Japanese Americans

Awards

Cybils Awards, 2016, Nominee, Middle Grade Fiction
Parents' Choice Award, 2016, Gold, Fiction

Keywords

internment camps; dog; family; World War 2; Pearl Harbor attack; incarceration

Diversity Impact

direct

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