So Far from the Sea [Paperback]

Eve Bunting (Author), Chris K. Soentpiet (Illustrator)

Book Description

Age Level: 5 and up | Grade Level: K and up

Laura Iwasaki and her family are paying what may be their last visit to Laura's grandfather's grave. The grave is at Manzanar, where thousands of Americans of Japanese heritage were interned during World War II. Among those rounded up and taken to the internment camp were Laura's father, then a small boy, and his parents. Now Laura says goodbye to Grandfather in her own special way, with a gesture that crosses generational lines and bears witness to the patriotism that survived a shameful episode in America's history. This story of one family's visit to Manzanar, and of the memories stirred by the experience, will linger in reader's minds and hearts.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Bunting's (Smoky Night) eloquent yet spare narrative introduces nine-year-old Laura, who recounts her family's 1972 visit to the site of the former Manzanar War Relocation Camp in eastern California. Thirty years earlier, her father and his parents were interned there, along with 10,000 other Japanese Americans. Soon to move to Boston, Laura, her younger brother and parents pay a final visit to the grave of the children's grandfather, a tuna fisherman robbed of his boat, home and dignity when the U.S. government sent his family to this remote camp, far from the sea he loved. Thoughtful and sympathetic, Laura has brought a chillingly ironic offering for the ancestor she never knew. It is the neckerchief from her father's Cub Scout uniform, which her grandfather had insisted his son wear on the day soldiers arrived at their home to transport them to the camp: "That way they will know you are a true American and they will not take you." Soentpiet's (More Than Anything Else) portrait of the uniformed boy respectfully saluting the soldiers as his mournful parents embrace is only one of numerous wrenching images that will haunt readers long after the last page is turned. Rendered with striking clarity, the artist's watercolors recreate two vastly different settings, evoking the tense 1940s scenarios in black and white and the serene yet wistful 1970s setting in bright color. An exceptionally effective collaboration. Ages 5-9.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From School Library Journal

Grade 2-5AAll the more moving in its restraint, this picture-book account of a fictional family reveals, with gentle dignity, a sad chapter in American history. Laura Iwasaki and her Japanese-American family will soon move from California to Boston, so they are making one last visit to Laura's grandfather's grave, which lies near the Sierra Nevada Mountains, so far from the sea he loved. Before World War II, he was a fisherman. Then, along with Laura's father, her grandmother, and 10,000 other Japanese Americans, he was sent to the Manzanar War Relocation Center. There he died, and his grave is marked with only a ring of stones. The family leaves silk flowers, but Laura leaves her own special memento. Soentpiet's impressionistic watercolors perfectly complement Bunting's evocative text. Both create a palpable sense of Manzanar as it is today: a windy, isolated place, its buildings gone, dominated by snow-covered mountains. Black-and-white paintings that suggest '40s photographs illustrate Laura's father's memories of the camp. This book is much more personal than Sheila Hamanaka's nonfiction text for her mural, The Journey (Orchard, 1990), and more accessible. At the story's end, Laura whispers, "It was wrong." Her father answers, "Sometimes in the end there is no right or wrong....It is just a thing that happened long years ago. A thing that cannot be changed." Yet art and text invite a new generation of Americans to remember that things can go terribly wrong when fear and hysteria prevail.AMargaret A. Chang, Massachusetts College of Liberal Arts
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Reading level: Ages 5 and up
  
• Paperback: 32 pages
• Publisher: Sandpiper; Reprint edition (June 29, 2009)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0547237529
• ISBN-13: 978-0547237527
• Product Dimensions: 10.3 x 10 x 0.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (8 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #517,737 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #30 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > Authors & Illustrators, A-Z > ( B ) > Bunting, Eve
  • #77 in Books > 4-for-3 Books > Children's Books > People & Places > Multicultural Stories > Asian & Asian American

More About the Author

Eve Bunting has written more than 200 books for children, many of which can be found in libraries around the world. Her other Clarion titles for very young readers include My Big Boy Bed, which was also illustrated by Maggie Smith, and Little Bear's Little Boat, illustrated by Nancy Carpenter. She lives in Pasadena, California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars So Close to Us, April 3, 2002

By 

Jedidiah Palosaari "Not My Real Name" (Fes, Morocco) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: So Far from the Sea (Hardcover)

Every time I read this story to the children in the library I worked at I cried. A year later I still remember it vividly. The book showed the atrocity of what we did simply by showing the emotions of Japanese-Americans 50 years later. One truly feels for the father uprooted from his life and culture; the grandfather uprooted from the sea and his fishing. I can relate to the tragedy of being removed from the water. Eve Bunting builds to a dramatic, emotional climax- which is not easy to do in a short children's book. Chris Soetpiet's illustrations are beautiful, with excellent use of both color and black and white. And the short historical synopsis at the end provides opportunity to discuss with children the reality behind the story.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Children's Book that Is So Much More, November 3, 2002

By 

"miezee" (Oregon, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: So Far from the Sea (Hardcover)

Wonderful, chilling book about the imprisonment(more euphemistically called internment by the governmeny) of Japanese-Americans during world war too, told from the point of view of a child who goes to visit one of the prisons(more euphemistically called "camps"), where her grandfather died, so far from the sea, where he had lived before his life was interrupted. It is sad and engulfing, with snippets of irony, that gets the message across with the help of bright pictures.

8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Check this book out..., June 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: So Far from the Sea (Hardcover)

This story is told through the eyes of a little girl, Laura, who is going to visit her grandfather's grave one last time before the family moves out of the area. The grandfather's grave is located in the abandoned Manzanar Relocation Camp.

Laura's parents tell of their struggles and their lives inside of the relocation camps. Laura listens of the injustices and trys to understand.

This is a wonderful story, with a message of hope and moving on told as only Eve Bunting can.