Graham Salisbury

Calvin Coconut: Trouble Magnet is the first in a new series by Graham Salisbury. Trouble always seems to find Calvin even when he's doing his best to avoid it. At home he has to give up his room to a girl from Texas. At school he's got a couple of bullies to avoid. To make matters worse, one of the bullies has a crush on the girl from Texas!

The Calvin Coconut books are set on the island of Oahu. As Graham Salisbury explains on the series website, he has set the books in his old elementary show more school. What this means is that the characters in Calvin Coconut seem real without being an obvious lesson on Hawaiian multiculturalism.

Instead of focusing on Hawaiian culture being different, Calvin and his friends learn through trial and error how different Texas culture. What strikes them as normal strikes Calvin's house guest as weird. Being in a Pacific rim state too, I find Hawaiian culture more normal than Texan, so I can relate to Calvin's bewilderment.

The books are best for children in second through fifth grade. There are delightful illustrations by Jacqueline Rogers to accompany the silliest of the scenes in the book.

There are four books planned and I've read two. I hope to read the others.( show less

I always love how Graham Salisbury makes the everyday multiculturalism of Hawaii come alive for young readers. This is the first of a promising new series about 4th grader Calvin Coconut and the everyday scrapes he gets into, in this case, running afoul of bully Tito, losing a pet centipede in class, and almost losing a man's kiteboard. From the descriptions, Calvin's family is of modest means and cluttered life (Dad left the family to pursue a singing career; Mom's boyfriend helps out show more around the house; the family takes in a friend's troubled teenaged daughter). But Calvin takes everything in stride, island-style. show less

Hunt for the Bamboo Rat by Graham Salisbury is based on a true story and tells of the World War II military intelligence service of a young Hawaiian born American-Japanese who under the code name of Bamboo Rat spies on the Japanese in the Philippines.

When the Japanese invade, Zeniji who is 17 at the time, sticks to his cover story and hides the fact that he is in the American military. He is arrested, beaten and tortured but stands his ground. Eventually, the Japanese accept his cover story show more and as he speaks both Japanese and English he is forced to work for a high ranking officer. He continues his spy work and his information is delivered to the Americans through the Philippine guerrillas. Even after the Americans return to the Philippines, Zeniji must be very careful how he approaches people as all they see is a young Japanese man not the American hero that he has become.

Hunt for the Bamboo Rat is an intense and exciting survival story. Zeniji proved to be a strong, intelligent young man, a very loyal American who survived as a spy and a POW. His story is one of courage in the face of insurmountable odds and I was glued to this adventure-filled historical fiction novel. show less

"Eyes of the Emperor" recounts a little-known period of American military history as narrated by Eddy Okubo, a young Japanese American who lives in Honolulu. In 1941, he is sixteen, and enlists in the U.S. army by lying about his age. Less than two months after that, the Japanese bomb Pearl Harbor. Japanese Americans are now viewed suspiciously by a lot of their fellow Americans, including some in the American army who doubt the loyalty of Japanese American soldiers like Eddy. As a result, show more Eddy and the other Japanese American soldiers are not sent for advanced training in preparation for combat. Instead, they are first sent to spend five months guarding a beach in Hawai'i from a possible Japanese landing. Then, they are sent to an army camp in Wisconsin where they go through basic training again. There, they see an internment camp where Japanese Americans are being held, just because of their ancestry.

Finally, Eddy and twenty-five other soldiers are sent to an island off the coast of Mississippi. They learn about the very demeaning job they were brought there to do. Despite the initial shock, they are soldiers, and soldiers obey orders, so they take their mission at heart. Their minds, bodies and beliefs are tried in the course of long and dangerous training exercises on the island. On Cat Island, patriotism, duty and courage are put to the test. But in the end, Eddy and his fellow soldiers will finally be viewed as the legitimate and deserving U.S. soldiers that they always were.

This is an excellent novel that successfully takes us in the hearts and minds of a small group of Japanese American soldiers who feel betrayed by their country, but want to prove their loyalty to it all the more. We see the prejudice they are faced with, the cruel training they are subjected to, but also the saving camaraderie among them. The writing is powerful, and the reader gets sucked into the experience of the characters. Knowing that it is based on actual events, I was so infuriated at times by what these soldiers had to go through that I had to put the book down. It is a book that deserves to be read not only for its gripping account of the events it recounts, but also because it is important to learn about what those soldiers endured. It is interesting to know that the author met with and interviewed eight of the twenty-six "Cat Island men".

I definitely recommend this book for purchase in a high school library. It is an easy read that can appeal to reluctant readers, and the compelling story should be of interest to Gr. 9-12 students, even those who do not like history. In addition, this book ties into the 11th grade social studies standards.

This book was an "ALA Best Book for Young Adults" (2006), an "ALA Notable Book" (2006), and it was selected by the New York Public Library in its "Best Books for the Teen Age" in 2006. show less