Review: Within These Lines by Stephanie Morrill

Book info:

Title:  Within These Lines
Author:  Stephanie Morrill
Genre:  YA Historical Fiction
Release Date:  March 5th, 2019
Publisher:  Blink YA
Source:  ARC received from publisher which did not influence my opinion
My rating:  5 stars

Synopsis:
Evalina Cassano’s life in an Italian-American family in 1941 is everything it “should be” until she falls in love with Taichi Hamasaki, the son of Japanese immigrants. Despite the scandal it would cause and that inter-racial marriage is illegal in California, Evalina and Taichi vow they will find a way to be together. But anti-Japanese feelings erupt across the country after the attack on Pearl Harbor, and Taichi and his family are forced to give up their farm and move to an internment camp.

Degrading treatment make life at Manzanar Relocation Center difficult. Taichi’s only connection to the outside world are treasured letters from Evalina. Feeling that the only action she can take to help Taichi is to speak out on behalf of all Japanese Americans, Evalina becomes increasingly vocal at school and at home. Meanwhile, inside Manzanar, fighting between different Japanese-American factions arises. Taichi begins to doubt he will ever leave the camp alive.

With tensions running high and their freedom on the line, Evalina and Taichi must hold true to their values and believe in their love to make a way back to each other against unbelievable odds.


My Review:
Although this one actually started off slow for me, and I was unsure if I would like it, it really redeemed itself in the end.  I usually love historical fiction like this, especially when it is about certain parts of history that I only know the bare minimum about.  To be honest, the only thing I really  knew about the Japanese detainment camps during WWII had to do with what I'd learned from one of the characters in the original Karate Kid movie.  Yeah, I know, that's sad.  I'm sure I learned other things in school, but that is all that stuck with me.  

The book started out seeming like it was just going to be a pretty simple romance story with some of the historical times that it was set in. But once we got to the point where Taichi got sent to the camp, it really got into what resonated with me.  The fact that here in America we would start a camp, and run it, almost as bad as what the Nazi's were doing in Germany, frustrates me. However, the book reminded me about how the press made sure to only cover what made it look like the camps were nice relaxing, fun places.  That the truth of the matter wasn't really shown.  That kind of detail is so relevant in today's world, when we hear about fake news, and you hear that governments or companies, want to control what is reported.  

But it wasn't just the Japanese interment camp parts that this book really brought up.  There was also the bit that Evalina had to deal with not only as a female, but also as a minority in the country at that time as well.  The fact that inter-racial marriage was so illegal at that time, so much more than really ever occurred to me, a very sheltered girl when I was growing up in the suburbs of the 80s.  

Overall this was a great historical fiction for teens, and I look forward to putting it in my school library for my students to read. 
 

Author Interview Promo and Giveaway: Nora and Kettle by Lauren Nicolle Taylor

Book Details:

Nora and Kettle by Lauren Nicolle Taylor
Published by: Clean Teen Publishing
Publication date: February 29th, 2016
Genres: Historical, Young Adult

Synopsis:
What if Peter Pan was a homeless kid just trying to survive, and Wendy flew away for a really good reason?

Seventeen-year-old Kettle has had his share of adversity. As an orphaned Japanese American struggling to make a life in the aftermath of an event in history not often referred to—the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II and the removal of children from orphanages for having “one drop of Japanese blood in them”—things are finally looking up. He has his hideout in an abandoned subway tunnel, a job, and his gang of Lost Boys.

Desperate to run away, the world outside her oppressive brownstone calls to naïve, eighteen-year-old Nora—the privileged daughter of a controlling and violent civil rights lawyer who is building a compensation case for the interned Japanese Americans. But she is trapped, enduring abuse to protect her younger sister Frankie and wishing on the stars every night for things to change.

For months, they’ve lived side by side, their paths crossing yet never meeting. But when Nora is nearly killed and her sister taken away, their worlds collide as Kettle, grief stricken at the loss of a friend, angrily pulls Nora from her window.

In her honeyed eyes, Kettle sees sadness and suffering. In his, Nora sees the chance to take to the window and fly away.

Set in 1953, NORA AND KETTLE explores the collision of two teenagers facing extraordinary hardship. Their meeting is inevitable, devastating, and ultimately healing. Their stories, a collection of events, are each on their own harmless. But together, one after the other, they change the world.


Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/26489591-nora-kettle

Purchase:
Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/Nora-Kettle-Lauren-Nicolle-Taylor/dp/1634221354
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/nora-kettle-lauren-nicolle-taylor/1122157779?ean=9781634221351&cm_mmc=AFFILIATES-_-Linkshare-_-GwEz7vxblVU-_-10:1
Kobo: https://store.kobobooks.com/en-ca/ebook/nora-kettle
iBooks: https://itunes.apple.com/ca/book/nora-kettle/id1008283921?mt=11

Author Interview:
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1.     What does your writing process look like?  Do you know the whole story when you start?  Or do you just start writing and go with it (seat of the pants writing)?  If you plan it out, how do you do that?  Outline, note cards, post-it notes, etc.?

My writing process looks like the inside of my brain: A total mess. I usually just start writing and then maybe write a very rough outline about halfway through once I’ve got a good sense of who my characters are. I usually write little quotes in my notebook as I go along and they guide my scenes.

2.     I love retellings of fairy tales or other classic stories.  How did you come up with this reimagining of Peter Pan?

The Peter Pan theme really just fit my characters. I’d say about a third of the way through writing Nora & Kettle I realized that I was taking inspiration from Peter Pan and then I just ran with it. To me, it was important to have a fantastical element to the story to help the reader gain some relief from the confronting situations the characters face.

3.     How long have you been writing?

I have been writing for about three years now. Before I wrote my first book, The Woodlands, I’d never written more than a few pages of anything.

4.     What tips do you have for aspiring writers?

I’m sure everyone says it, but be persistent and just keep writing. The more you write the better you’ll get at it.

5.     How important are names in your books?  Do you choose the names based on liking the way it sounds, or the meaning?  Do you have any name choosing resources you recommend?

Names usually just come to me because I like the way they sound and then I have to look them up to see of they fit the era. Nora was always Nora and Kettle was always Kettle. Frankie was actually Eleanor or Ells for short to start with but I just didn’t like it after I’d written her character some more.

Some fun questions

Favorites:  

Books/authors/genres

I have many favourite books. Pinocchio was my favourite childhood novel. I also loved the Shiver series, The Sea of Tranquility, Me Before You… I could go on and on.

Movies/TV Shows

I’ll watch just about anything but I tend to like comedies more at the moment. Loving The Mindy Project, Brooklyn Nine Nine and Undateable at the moment. Old faves include, Scrubs, The X Files and The O.C.

Music

I’m a Hip Hop fan. Some of my favourite artists are Common, Jurassic Five, Hilltop Hoods and Lupe Fiasco. But I also love the folky stuff like Jose Gonzalez and Paul Simon. Plus I have a soft spot for musical soundtracks like Wicked and Les Mis.

Food/writing snack

Chips!

Social Media Site

Instagram  

Author Bio:

Lauren Nicolle Taylor lives in the lush Adelaide Hills. The daughter of a Malaysian nuclear physicist and an Australian scientist, she was expected to follow a science career path, attending Adelaide University and completing a Health Science degree with Honours in obstetrics and gynaecology.
She then worked in health research for a short time before having her first child. Due to their extensive health issues, Lauren spent her twenties as a full-time mother/carer to her three children. When her family life settled down, she turned to writing.

She is a 2014 Kindle Book Awards Semi-finalist and a USA Best Book Awards Finalist.

 

Author links:
http://www.laurennicolletaylor.com/
https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/7201181.Lauren_Nicolle_Taylor
https://www.facebook.com/TheWoodlandSeries
https://twitter.com/LaurenNicolleT 

Giveaway:
Tour-wide giveaway (INTL) - Ends March 10th

• Clean Teen Publishing Mystery Box
  

a Rafflecopter giveaway

 

Review: Echo by Pam Munoz Ryan

I'm not sure exactly who to thank for the ARC of this that I received in the mail about a month ago.  I don't know if I requested it through a Shelf Awareness giveaway, or if I have maybe got a contact in Scholastic since I emailed last fall and requested Blue Lily, Lily Blue when I was turned down for an egalley of it.  At first when I received this I was unsure.  I'd read the author before, and really enjoyed her work, but this was another one that seemed a bit younger than I usually read these days.  The blurb definitely caught my attention, and I'm so glad that I gave it a chance.  While it is maybe more of a middle school book, it is about the time surrounding World War II and looks at the war from different places and different stations in life. 

The story begins with a little fairy tale/legend found by a boy named Otto, 50 years before World War II began.  Otto found a book and read it when he was hiding in the forest from his friends during a game of Hide and Seek. What's pretty cool about this first part, is that now I understand why we say "Olly olly oxen free!"  Because it comes from the German words, "Alle, alle auch sind frei," or maybe it does.  I think it means, something like, all in free.  I don't know, but it was fun to read it if it was true.  Otto actually meets the 3 girls in the fairy tale, and they give him a harmonica that has some magic in it, to help save someone.  We don't know exactly what happens to it after that.  We leave Otto's story and jump into Friedrich's story in 1933 Germany. 

Friedrich is a young boy with a birthmark on his face.  Because of that, and the fact that he seemed to hear music and be conducting it all the time, he was made fun of in school, so his father brought him to work at the harmonica factory with him in the mornings. Then in the afternoon he gave him lessons, as well as other people working at the factory that helped with his education.  This is a time when Hitler is coming to power.  But Friedrich and his father and Uncle Gunter are not supporters.  When his sister Elisabeth comes home from nursing school, supposedly to begin working with their local doctor, things change.  She has become a supporter of Hitler, and according to the new laws, it is possible that Friedrich might need to be sterilized because they wouldn't want him passing on the birthmark that is hereditary.  Everything seems to be going okay until Friedrich sends the harmonica away in a shipment for the factory.  We're left when the local police catch him trying to run away to save his father from a camp.

Then we go to learn about Mike and his brother Frank in Pennsylvania in 1935.  They are living in boys home because they have no family anymore.  When they went there, their grandmother had made the woman in charge promise to get them adopted out together.  But the headmaster doesn't seem to plan to do that.  In fact she takes any money or extra food that is given by charity for the boys and sells it or keeps it for herself.  Because she doesn't want to lose this money, she is planning to send all the younger ones, like Frank, to the state home, which is supposed to be even worse than where they are now.  And she will send the older ones, like Mike to work for more money for her.  When they are almost ready to run away, they end up getting a chance to be adopted, both of them together, because of their musical ability.  This new family doesn't turn out to be quite what they'd hoped, even though they get harmonicas and think it may be their way out if they can learn to play enough to get chosen for a special tour.  We leave these two when they think things might get worse and something really scary happens as they try to run away.

The third part of the story is a girl, Ivy, who lives in California in 1942.  She has finally lived in one town for a full year when her father gets a letter saying they will be able to move and possibly live in a house for a change.  A house of their own, and it could be a permanent place. She doesn't want to move, she was just about to get to play a solo on the radio with her 5th grade class.  But they have to leave the very next day, and with her older brother Fernando away in the war, she has promised him to keep their family together.  It turns out they are going to be keeping up the orange grove for a Japanese man who has been sent to an Internment camp along with his family just because they are Japanese, even though the father of the family served in World War I for America and received medals of honor.  The rich man who lives down the street really wants to buy the Japanese man's house, partly because he thinks that maybe he was actually a spy.  Ivy meets a friend, the rich man's daughter.  Many things though are not as they seem. The great school that Ivy is now excited to go to and join the orchestra is one of those things.  And if the rich man is able to buy the house, will Ivy's family lose their new home?  And of course, will her brother make it home from the war?

The very end of the book is a story that will tie all of these characters together, and it all deals with the harmonica and music.  Even Otto gets brought back in to finish the fairy tale and give the girls in the story their happy ending.

Another great story by Pam Munoz Ryan.  A great tale of World War II, and how people, children, lived and survived during these times.  I will be putting it on my list of books to buy for my high school library for next year.