From 500 Great Books by Women; review by Erica Bauermeister
When Naomi was a young child living in Vancouver, British Columbia, her mother left to visit relatives in Japan. Soon after, the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor. Naomi's mother was not allowed to return and Naomi's family was "relocated" by the Canadian government. When Obasan begins, Naomi is thirty-five, a woman determined to ignore her past. But the death of the man who helped raise her and her aunt's who refusal to forgive the Canadian government force Naomi to remember. Naomi's initial memories are of a big house with a backyard and a father who loved music, of handcrafted boats and communal baths with her great-aunt. Then the memories shift and she remembers families divided, chicken coops assigned as "houses," parents dying away from their children, and a government that took away rights based on ethnic heritage, not actions. Obasan uses a combination of personal narrative, lyrical outpourings, official letters, and dreams to protest the treatment of Japanese-Canadians during World War II. Differing in style and emotional intensity, the voices clash and mesh, building upon each other until they reach the ending, which both stuns and forces us to reconsider all that has gone before. -- For great reviews of books for girls, check out Let's Hear It for the Girls: 375 Great Books for Readers 2-14.


Review
"This quiet novel burns in your hand." --Washington Post.

FROM THE PUBLISHER