Journey Home by Yoshiko Uchida

Journey Home Reviews

• 
  D. B. Guin

  This was a quick story following Yuki and her family as they try to pick up the pieces of their lives after returning from a Japanese internment camp during WWII. A very simple but multi-faceted look at a painful subject through the eyes of a young girl.
  
  Sometimes you just need to take a break and read a kids' historical fiction.
• 
  Sarah Donovan

  Twelve year old Yuki is now allowed to return to California. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, she and many other Japanese Americans were rounded up and forced to live in a Japanese internment camp. This historical fiction novel follows Yuki as she re-settles in her San Francisco Bay community, a community decidedly different -- now more racist -- from the one Yuki remembers.
  
  The strength of this novel is that Uchida works to show the implications of America interning its own people through several narratives: a Japanese American fighting in WWII, a European American fighting in WWII, an immigrant's experience, issues finding work post internment, racism towards whites, racism towards Japanese, isolation, and community.
  
  The weakness, in my opinion, is that the characters area somewhat flat. Fiction, especially fiction for young adults, needs a more engaging protagonist to sustain readers, and I think Uchida missed the mark here. The aesthetics are not such that students will remember the story because of how it made them feel but rather what they learned about World War II, which is not necessarily a bad thing but feeling helps with understanding.
  
  Students can read this novel without much support from the teacher, and I think because it is a narrative, the story opens up opportunities to do inquiry into the implications of WWII domestically and internationally.
• 
  Luann

  I didn't enjoy this one quite as much as Journey to Topaz, although I did still find the subject matter very interesting. I think many Americans don't realize or remember that Japanese Americans were required to leave their homes and live in concentration camps during WWII. This is the sequel to
  Journey To Topaz: A Story Of The Japanese-American Evacuation, which tells the story of Yuki and her family living in a concentration camp in Utah. In Journey Home, Yuki and her family have been allowed to leave the concentration camp, but cannot yet go back to California. They live for a time in Salt Lake City while waiting for the war to end and the law against any Japanese living on the West Coast to be changed. Yuki just wants to go home and have her regular life back.
  
  When the war ends, Uncle Oka is still sad and tells Yuki it is because of all he has lost due to the war. He says, "In war, nobody wins. Nobody at all." Later, though, he is able to find forgiveness:
  
  "Forgive . . . " he murmured. The word came slowly and softly from his lips, as though he were understanding it for the first time. He spoke the word as a blind man might feel a new object, touching it, discovering it, wondering about it, amazed at the feelings that came alive as he said the word. Then he said slowly, "I guess forgiving does take the bundle of hate off your back."
• 
  Irene

  Even though Journey to Topaz was about a young girl and her family's experiences in a Japanese internment camp during WWII, this book - about the same family's re-integration into the "real world" after being released from the camp - seemed to be the heavier read. You'd think that having your father taken away by the FBI, and being sent to live in make-shift barracks in the middle of a dessert (as told in Journey to Topaz), would have as much gravitas as you could bear in a children's book. Yet, this one really had more.
  
  Yuki's family returns to their hometown of Berkeley. Some friends from camp join them, and they also make new friends. But everything's different. This book is very explicit about the racism the Japanese encountered even after the war ended, and Yuki's brother Ken returns from war with what sounds like PTSD, even though those words aren't used in the book. Perhaps Ken's emotional problems were handled a little too easily, but it's probably age-appropriate for the intended audience of the book.
  
  A really poignant read that exposes children to the harsh realities of race in America. Still, it holds an important message of forgiveness and hope.
• 
  Aklatan Reader

  I gave this a three because I feel that it may have been too tidily written such as to end the way it did. Regardless, this is a book that I would let my own daughter read someday.
  
  May be spoilers, you have been warned.
  
  The issues tackled here go on beyond the page and maybe it is the pessimist part of me thinking that the darkness in this book should not have been dulled so simply. But I like that it was still hopeful, a flame in a dark room for anyone who needs it.
  
  This is a shameful chapter in US history that is not talked about too often. In this is the story of a young girl, a family, and a young idealist facing struggles that are still universal up to this day...unfortunately. It is a sad fact that history repeats itself. This book preserves the memory of a war and its effects so as to prepare us for its reoccurrence. If even only for that, this book should be read by more.
  
  Today it has reminded me to look into my conscience, not at the color of another's skin, or of another's flag. It gives a human face to anyone I might think my enemy. Something worth reflecting on, when the time comes.
• 
  Boni Peterson

  This book is a good reminder of the awful way Japanese Americans were treated during WWII. It is really quite shameful and an ugly part of our history. In this book, the family has to recover after losing everything (home, job, etc.) due to being forced to go to a camp in Topaz, Utah. The book, Journey to Topaz, details their time in camp fully, this book deals with the aftermath of it all. Good history lesson for anyone, but written as a YA book.
• 
  Ramona

  A very simply-told story from a young girl's perspective, that most adults would find too simple to read. The emotions are well defined and you can feel the frustration, hurt, and sadness in the girl and her family, as they are removed from their nice home, and happy lifestyle, to a detention camp, and treated like criminals, during WWII, because they are Asian. The older son enlists despite his nationality and returns home injured, in body and mind, like so many. There is a mostly happy ending for this family, but their lives will never be the same.
• 
  Jen

  I picked this up after reading 'Journey to Topaz' to find out what happened to Yuki and her family. But this book didn't have the same appeal while reading it. Still nice to have the story complete.
• 
  Patricia Bell

  I know historical fiction isn’t the preferred genre of most young readers, but the themes of prejudice, bitterness, and forgiveness are still relevant. Used as a read aloud, this book could foster great dialogue.
• 
  Cat Rennolds

  Good middle school, late elementary story. Excellent fiction pairing for studying Japanese internment/Pearl Harbor in social studies. Both enjoyable narrative and usefully accurate details of setting and events.
• 
  Jessica

  There weren't many books on this topic when this was written. In fact, it's how I first learned these camps even existed in the US.
• 
  Melinda

  A story of a Japanese American girl’s experience after ,eating the Topaz Relocation center in Utah after WWII no what awaits her at home in California. Written for young adults it’s an easy read.
• 
  Heidi Foster

  I thought this book offered a good insight into the Japanese trying to reintegrate after being separated in camps in the United States during World War II.
• 
  Katy Lovejoy

  World war 2 novel again!
• 
  Chris Maynard

  
  Purpose: Historical Fiction (Wide Reading Project)
  
  Genre: Historical Fiction
  
  Format: Novel
  
  Age Level: Late Intermediate (I): grade 5 (ages 10/11) to early middle school (MS): grade 6 (ages 11-12)
  
  Themes: concentration; internment; freedom vs. imprisonment; race hysteria; family; friends vs. enemies; World War II home front; identity; internal/external conflict; trust; citizenship; life and death
  
  Cultures: Japanese American culture
  
  Read Aloud: No
  
  Literary Elements: Different twist on the painful story of the internment of Japanese Americans following the bombing of Pearl Harbor in World War II, with the perspective coming from a young girl who has been released from an internment camp while many other Japanese Americans remain “imprisoned”; strong characters, from the confused protagonist Yuki to her brother Ken, who fights in WWII to show his loyalty but comes home a bitter and changed person, to an old man named Mr. Oka who distrusts all white people and lives with Yuki’s family in a church following the concentration camp; powerful internal and external conflicts that deal with understanding different identities, including as human beings and alleged “Americans”; realistic resolution as opposed to a fairy-tale ending.
  
  Awards: None.
  
  Uses: I could envision using Journey Home along with other books about Japanese American internment during World War II, including Farewell to Manzanar, Weedflower, Thin, Wood Walls, and The Lucky Baseball during book clubs/literature circles in which students could explore this unfortunate time in U.S. history through various real and fictional perspectives, compare similarities and differences between these different works, and ultimately engage in a larger, classroom discussion about the problems with and aftereffects of imprisoning loyal, American citizens.
  
  My Review: In the opening chapters of Journey Home, a pre-teen, Japanese-American girl named Yuki asks a poignant question worth considering: “Why would your own country put you behind barbed wire?” (p. 15). While several different books have addressed this question, specifically through the perspectives of real or fictional Japanese Americans as they actually lived in the internment camps, not one page of Journey Home takes place inside an internment camp (for this perspective, see Uchida’s Journey to Topaz), thus providing a unique, Japanese-American representation of this period in U.S. history. Rather, Yuki and her family have been released from the Topaz internment camp, yet they are from home. Living in an apartment in Salt Lake City, Utah, Yuki struggles to deal with some new scary realities, including that some of her dear friends are still at Topaz, her brother is off fighting in the war, and she is now looked at with great suspicion by white people. While Yuki eventually returns to California, she hardly feels home as even more new, complex and realistic issues emerge.
  
  While other books do a better job of explaining what life in the internment camps was like for Japanese Americans, author Yoshiko Uchida does not focus on this depiction; rather, she slowly but surely examines some internal questions and external issues that a Japanese American child like the fictional Yuki would have probably experienced in the ensuing weeks, months and years after being imprisoned. To her credit, Uchida does not conclude her book with a happy ending, even though Yuki admits that she felt like she “…had finally come home too…” (p. 131), but rather offers some slow-developing resolutions that would likely linger for Yuki and the supporting characters far well after closing the book. While I would argue that there are better books on Japanese American interment during World War II, I would still utilize Journey Home in the classroom based on the different challenges it provides, as we don’t often hear such stories, even if fictional, of Japanese Americans who were released from the internment camps well before others.
  
• 
  Pippa Gallagher

  I read Journey Home by Yoshiko Uchida. There is a young girl who is japanese, living in Berkeley CA. Her name is Yuki. When I heard this I felt an instant connection to this character. I have a lot to write about so settle in. I will not be doing a summary but will put in key points to help explain points.
  The point of view is from the main character Yuki. From her point of view you get the sense that she is on the U.S side during World War ll. She is the type of person that is glass half full. This book pursued well that that she never gave up hope. If it were from the brothers point of view it would be a completely different story. He starts out in war were she starts out in a concentration camp called Topaz. Her story is tragic to all readers but she is one of the most hopeful and inspiring characters.
  The settings vary in this book. In the beginning she is left in the desert having a nightmare. This is when she was in Topaz. She is there for awhile. During this time period you understand that though she is Japanese she misses her home in Berkeley. The author uses the character to get the setting across. She makes it seem very grungy. She goes from dry barren desert to a city. The city is her home so of course she is happier there but the setting shows some unfriendly parts and then it goes to her little apartment. I think the author interprets what it was like to be Japanese in the setting of Berkeley well.
  The climax in this book is pretty steady. There are big moments in almost every chapter. Whether it is coming home or having struggles with being Japanese and living in California. Of course there are bigger moments than others. Over all I think the author did a good job not having half of the book boring and simple. She spreading it out. It makes you able to think about each big step or the sad moments. The plot is very thick with all these moments. If anybody is going to read this I don't want to ruin the story by telling you the biggest part. I will tell you that the climax made me sad and mad.
  This is a great book if you want to learn more about what happened during World War ll. I hope that anybody who wants to read this book will. I did not no much about World War ll and now I can say that I do. I hope I have inspired you to read this book. It was very enjoyable and full of life.
  
• 
  Heather Erickson

  I read Journey to Topaz many years ago. This is the sequel. It was sweet in some ways, and at first I thought some of the conflicts resolved too quickly. This is a middle reader, and problems are solved with kindness and forgiveness and maybe that is a lesson that especially the target audience needs. The author is quite a remarkable woman, and is a heroine of mine.
• 
  Dalia

  The author perfectly describes the feeling of being an alien in a country that you once felt your own, and the impotence of not being in charge of your life anymore. But it also shows how in times of despair there is always something to be grateful for, like family and friends, and that there is always hope if you are will ing to not give up.
  
  A book that may well describe the current feeling of inmigrants not only in the US, but also the ones of the refugees of the Syrian conflict.