This is the true story of a little girl, her sister, mother, and brother and their escape from Korea back to Japan at the end of World War Two. This story is written by Yoko Kawashima Watkins, who was the little girl whose eyes the story is told through. This story was very gripping, I finished it the day I started because I could not put it down. The horrors of war are told in a straightforward yet incredibly emotional way through the eyes of eleven year old Yoko. The strength of the three main characters: Yoko, her sister, and her mother as they travel towards freedom is inspiring and amazing. I would definitely have my class read this book if we were studying World War Two in order to give them an in-depth understanding of the War from a non-traditional perspective.
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ReplyDeletePlease get your facts right before you write a book review:
ReplyDeleteThere were no North-Korean soldiers in 1945 (they existed after 3 years), and the location of where the author claims to have been when she was young did not have the right condition for bamboo trees to grow back then (Nanam). She also claims to have seen and heard bombs explode due to US air-force planes, but B-29s did not have fuel tanks large enough to fly all the way to Korea (nor were there ANY records of bombing in Korea at that time). Also, the United States ORDERED the Japanese soldiers occupying in Korea to be left ARMED until every Japanese civilians were escorted back to their homeland. Thus if Japanese civilians were REALLY raped, chances are, they were raped by their own people.
So what do we have left from this novel? Just a fictional book that distorts history in a very ironic way (Considering the fact that the Japanese soldiers RAPED and MURDERED Korean women at wartime for pleasure. They actually had the nerves to call these women 'Comfort Girls'). The book title should be renamed as "So Far from History and the Truth"
It's like Hitler claiming that he was tortured by the Jews in the Holocaust. Sounds like a nice book for young kids and adults eh?