Under the Blood-Red Sun (Mass Market Paperback)

by Graham Salisbury (Author) "It all started the day Grampa Joji decided to wash his precious flag of Japan and hang it out on the clothesline for the whole..." (more)
Key Phrases: diamond grass, haole boy, fish box, Tough Boy, Kaka'ako Boys, Sand Island (more...)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
Salisbury (Blue Skin of the Sea) again invokes a Hawaiian setting for this novel, which chronicles the trials of a Japanese American boy and his immigrant family in 1941. Tomi's fisherman father and housekeeper mother work hard to support Tomi, his younger sister and grandfather in their cramped servants' house. While he embraces everything about being American, including a passion for baseball, Tomi struggles to find some middle ground between his modern life and the nationalism and traditional values his parents and Grandpa try to impart. But as WWII intensifies and Pearl Harbor is bombed, Tomi's family faces racism, violence and hardship at every turn. Tomi's father and grandfather are taken away and incarcerated, leaving Tomi to worry if he can perform honorably as man of the house. Salisbury skillfully describes Tomi's emotional highs and lows, and has a particular knack for realistically portraying the camaraderie and dialogue between boyhood chums. The slow-evolving plot drags in a few spots (especially the play-by-play descriptions of baseball games), but readers are rewarded with steadily building dramatic tension in the novel's second half and a satisfyingly open-ended finale. Ages 10-up.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From School Library Journal
Grade 5-8-September, 1941 is a time of increasing confusion for Tomi Nakaji, 13, who lives on the island of Oahu. As if his gruff, stroke-slowed grandfather, who insists on waving his Japanese flag around the yard, isn't enough, he has to contend with Keet Wilson, the bully next door. From a treetop, Tomi and his haole (white) best friend, Billy, witness in disbelief the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Tomi finds the horrors personalized as his father, a poor fisherman, and later his grandfather are arrested and his father's fishing partner is killed. Tomi assumes responsibility for the family honor and katama, or samurai sword. Racial/ethnic tension is subtly portrayed throughout the novel, but escalates following the Japanese attack- Tomi's mother loses her job as a housekeeper and Billy "disappears" for awhile, though he returns as a loyal and helpful friend. Tomi faces his fears and becomes assertive enough to stand up to Keet without besmirching his family's honor and risks his life to see his imprisoned father. Character development of major figures is good, the setting is warmly realized, and the pace of the story moves gently though inexorably forward. While it may be a bit more aimed than pitched, the ending leaves readers confident that the Nakajis will survive.
Joel Shoemaker, Southeast Jr. High School, Iowa City, IA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Reading level: Young Adult
  
• Mass Market Paperback: 272 pages
• Publisher: Laurel Leaf (April 26, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0553494872
• ISBN-13: 978-0553494877
• Product Dimensions: 6.7 x 4.1 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 4.8 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars See all reviews (81 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #23,858 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Definite Realistic Read, February 12, 2007

A Kid's Review

A good book that I recently read is Under the Blood Red Sun. It is a realistic historical fiction book by Graham Salisbury. It takes place on the island of Oahu, Hawaii, before, during, and after the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor.

The story is told from the point-of-view of Tomikazu (Tomi), an innocent Japanese-American boy living near Pearl Harbor at the time of the attack. Then Pearl Harbor is bombed. Tomi must deal with racism, bullies, and cruelty.

Tomikazu is a friendly eighth-grade boy who likes to play baseball, and has consequently formed his own team, The Rats. He is loyal to his friends and will even face the crazy school bully, Keet Wilson, for them.

Billy and The rats are Tomi's best friends, being eighth grade and avid fans of baseball like he is. Billy is the friend that Tomi hangs out with the most. He is The Rat's star pitcher and is kind of shy.

From the very beginning, even before Pearl Harbor was bombed, Keet Wilson, the local bully, is a problem. He is a spoiled brat who can take down even Billy's older brother, Jake. His extremely strict father is Tomi's family's landlord, so they cannot do anything to harm him. However, after the bombing, Keet takes being mean to a whole new level. Keet reports Tomi's father and grandfather to the police, falsely accusing them of being Japanese agents. He also tells the police anything Tomi's family does, exaggerating it so it sounds like they are Japanese supporters. He kills Tomi's father's prize racing pigeons, saying that they are messenger pigeons. He also breaks Tomi's family's clothesline and spoils their water supply.

The book starts out several days before the bombing of Pearl Harbor. It encompasses some of The Rat's baseball games, and their friendship with another team. Then Pearl Harbor is bombed. Tomi's peaceful life erupts into chaos. Everyone is suspicious of all the Japanese, and there are several lynch mobs. His father is shot in the leg by an American aircraft and taken away when coming back from a harmless fishing trip. Many Japanese are being taken the mainland internment camps, which are places that the U.S. government built so Japanese-Americans would not spy. But what will happen to Tomi's family as the only peaceful world they had ever known is crumbling around them?

The largest theme in the book is teamwork. Tomikazu's baseball team sticks together through Pearl Harbor, other baseball games, and bullies. It is a theme that makes you think teams can pull through anything, which they usually can. Another theme is racism. Tomi struggles through the racism directed at Japanese-Americans by white Americans who feared that they were spies following the bombing of Pearl Harbor.

I would recommend this book to anyone ages 11-14. It is a very good book, and deservedly won the prestigious Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction. It is very accurate for that timeframe, and it teaches in an entertaining way. It accurately describes the fear and racism following Pearl Harbor and gives glimpses of life in the internment camps. This book is suited for anyone who wants a realistic historical fiction or a tale with courage and bravery. The author writes this book seriously, staying on topic with very few humorous jokes, although it gives me an almost perfect mindset of where it takes place. It describes almost everything, from the dew on the leaves to the dust on the baseball diamond.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars FANTASTIC, October 6, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Under the Blood-Red Sun (Paperback)

This book was the best WWII book I have ever read that seriously relates to Hawaii... I think Graham Salisbury's works are good because they are deep and emotional especially this one!!! This is a GREAT book! Read Blue Skin of the Sea too! VERY GOOD!

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Skeptical at first, September 18, 2000

By	Brittany Karns (Fairbanks, Alaska United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Under the Blood-Red Sun (Paperback)

I read this in 5th grade for Battle of the Books. For some reason I was convinced that it was going to be the worst one, and I put it off to read last, but after I read it, I was charmed. This was my favorite book, tied with only one other. This historical fiction is a work or art. It depicts the bombing at Pearl Harbor well, showing how it changed so many lives. My copy is bent from over reading. No one that has taken my advice to read it has been dissapointed. The predjudice against the Japanese-Americans sparked by that bombing was really something that changed America. The main character, Tomi, has to struggle through family problems, as well as broken of friendships and tries to help hold onto any little bit of family herritage left. The rewards of reading this book are large, and I really appreciated it.