Hi, folks . . .
I was going to wait until closer to actual publication date to post a
review of Kiyo Sato's forthcoming book Dandelion Through the Crack, but I
just have to share this. Sacramento Bee colunist Anita Creamer has written
a terrific feature article in the Sacramento Bee about this wonderful book.
In the article, she quotes former California State Librarian, University of
Sourthern California History Professor Kevin Starr, whose praise of the
manuscript was pivotal in helping it reach publication and in keeping the
author's spirits up despite turndowns she had received from commercial and
academic publishers. (The book is to be published by a small but
enthusiastic and supportive regional press in Nevada City, California.)
Article by Sacramento Bee columnist Anita Creamer (with photos):
http://www.sacbee.com/creamer/story/235673.html
Excerpt:
http://www.sacbee.com/107/story/235669.html
I am quoted in the article. When I say Dandelion is a classic in the
making (a phrase quoted), I mean that **one hundred percent**. I have read
it six or seven times (both for pleasure and for copy editing/proofing),
and every time through I find something new in it. I cannot open it to any
page without being entranced. The subtleties and deeper themes are there to
be found on rereading. Incredibly, considering the central place in the
book of the forced relocation and imprisonment of the family, at the end,
the reader feels *good* on account of the lovely sense of resolution and
success in the family's quest (diverted, but not derailed) for the American
Dream.
Dr. Starr said that Dandelion deserved favorable comparison to Farewell to
Manzanar, which is probably the best-known book about the WW II internment
of Japanese-Americans. I believe that Dandelion will find an important
place in the curriculum both because it is a distinctively insightful
report on the internment experience, but because it is a comprehensive view
of a family's experience before, during, AND after the
internment. Further, it is a literary jewel, with an immediacy gained from
its present-tense narrative and from its extensive use of the author's
father's haiku and stories told to the children (Kiyo Sato had eight
brothers and sisters).
Anyway . . . you will enjoy the article, and I think you will enjoy the
book immensely, as will your students.
In due time, I will follow up here with an actual review (or if Knowledge
Quest gets its website caught up, my full review and some sidebars will be
published there in the fall).
Mark my words: within a generation, graduate students will be writing
dissertations about Dandelion Through the Crack It is that good and that
important as social history and as literature.
(By the way, the publisher's website for the book is
www.DandelionThroughTheCrack.com. It includes readers' comments and links
to internment- and civil-liberties-related websites, and will have the
author's appearance schedule, reviews, and so on.)
Ken
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