LOVE IN THE LIBRARY
During World War II, Tama is sent to live in an incarceration camp in the desert. All Japanese Americans from the West Coast - elderly people, children, babies - now live in camps like Minidoka. To be who she is has become a crime, and Tama doesn't know when or if she will ever leave. Trying not to think of the life she once had, she works in the incarceration camp's tiny library, taking solace in pages bursting with colour and light, love and fairness. And she isn't the only one. George waits each morning by the door, his arms piled with books checked out the day before. As their friendship grows, Tama wonders: Can anyone possibly read so much? Is she the reason George comes to the library every day? Maggie Tokuda-Hall and Yas Imamura's beautifully illustrated, elegant love story features a photo of the real Tama and George - the author's grandparents - and an unflinching and necessary afterword that helps readers to learn more about a time in history that continues to resonate.
MAGGIE TOKUDA-HALL
She's the author of Also an Octopus, illustrated by Benji Davies. The Mermaid, The Witch, and The Sea is her first novel. You can read her writing for adults in her column for Catapult Magazine Fear and Loathing in Utero , and her fiction on The Rumpus, Joyland Magazine, and Columbia Journal for Literature and the Arts. She lives in Oakland, California with her husband, son, and objectively perfect dog.
