This is one of those books that gently takes your breath away as you read page after page of stunningly beautiful writing.

The reader follows a Japanese-American family through their journey of internment in 1942 when their peaceful family life was uprooted, tossed and turned and split apart because of an irrational fear during WWII.

The writing is eloquent and the beauty lies in the way in which the story is told. It is softly written, like a breeze, yet all the while the reader feels the tempest and overwhelming sadness of the displacement of this gentle, loving family.

Each chapter has a voice of a different person. The journey begins with the sad, pragmatic realization of the mother who begins to pack the possessions.

We then follow the perspective of the children whose father was taken away before the government came for the family.

This is a look at the concept of US vs THEM. This is a look at how "the enemy" is defined. This is a sad look at a snapshot of American history during a troubling time.

The tale is not told in an angry voice, rather, the author takes us down the tearful trail of a Japanese-American family living the American dream in California to lonely, hot, humid, treeless Topaz Utah were they are herded like cattle to swat the flies in the God forsaken dessert.

Highly recommended ( )

This book is a reread for me, but I'm giving it much closer attention because I am teaching it as well. It's a beautiful, heartbreaking, understated, and very short novel about a Japanese-American family's evacuation and internment during World War II, based on true accounts. As I expected, few students in my class even knew that the US had evacuated these families and put them into what were, in effect, concentration camps. (The family in the story actually spent the first 4.5 months living in racetrack stalls while the camp barracks were being built.) Like the Nazi prisoners, they could take only what they could carry. Their homes were ransacked while they were gone, and they lived under guard inside walls topped with barbed wire.

The story is told in four chapters, each one from the point of view of one character. They are given no names, just "the woman," "the girl," "the boy," and "the man"--a device that at once makes them universal and nonentities--and each section is told in a unique voice.

A truly wonderful book. I was surprised that my students didn't like it as well as the last book, Girl with a Pearl Earring. ( )

In When the Emperor Was Divine, Otsuka tells the story of a Japanese American family in an internment camp during World War II. Many stories of injustice are told in horrific detail, making readers cringe as they imagine the horrors. This story is different. It is told in spare, simple prose. The family remains unnamed, and their experiences are told in a matter-of-fact voice. This style makes the book's story even more powerful. As small details of life in and after the internment camp are revealed in the book's 160 pages, Otsuka creates a vivid picture of this period in history that will stay with me for a long time.

Good little novel on the internment experience. ( )