Love in the Library by Maggie Tokuda-Hall

Title: Love in the Library
Author: Maggie Tokuda-Hall
Illustrator: Yas Imamura
Publication: Candlewick, hardcover, 2022
Genre: Picture book, historical fiction
Setting: Idaho, 20th century

Description: Tama, a young woman who would normally be in college, works at the library at the Minidoka internment camp, where she and more than 13,000 other Japanese Americans were imprisoned during WWII. She was not trained as a librarian but she likes books and everyone at the camp tries to keep busy to distract from their surroundings and situation. The conditions are terrible. George visits the library often and always smiles at Tama but she is too depressed to respond. Then one day she suddenly realizes that George is not interested in books: he’s interested in her! A friendship develops and leads to marriage. Their union was a testament to their resilience and the fact that sometimes something good can come from misery - here, the incredibly unfair detention of so many people.

My Impression: This is a simple but beautiful picture book written by Tama and George’s granddaughter, a children’s author who lives in Oakland. The illustrations reveal vivid color - but also barbed wire - as Tama and George's friendship turns into a heartwarming romance.  The back matter of the book includes a picture of the real Tama and George as well an afterword and other material for readers to learn more about this time in our country's history that has parallels to forced detention today.

It is hard to imagine growing up with this family story and being constantly confronted by what our government did to the author's family. I can understand the desire to tell their story and she did it extremely well. However, I wondered who the target market is for this lovely picture book. Presumably school libraries will purchase but will it be banned in Texas and Florida where they don’t want children to learn actual history in school? Is the topic too complicated for young children but the format too elementary for older ones?  It is captivating enough to reach a wide audience and I hope it does. Click here if you want to see whether your library has it.

Source: Personal copy.  This is my first book of the year for the Historical Fiction Reading Challenge hosted by The Intrepid Reader.

Off the Blog: The weather is crazy. A downpour overnight (probably leaving water in my basement), then it went up to 62 degrees and vaguely sunny Saturday afternoon so I left my coat in the car as I attended a basketball game. Now it going back down to near freezing and that is just Boston; it is frigid in Kansas City, Green Bay, and Buffalo. Not that the NFL asked me but I think it’s absurd that “when it comes to whether the weather will be so cold that it’s too cold from a safety standpoint, the NFL has no predetermined temperature reading that would postpone a game.”  I read that the Bills game was postponed to Monday not because of the cold but because there was terrible visibility in the stadium!

How cold is it at Arrowhead Stadium in Kansas City? Watch this water bottle freeze in seconds.