No-No Boy by John Okada

• ISBN: 978-0295955254
• Plot summary: After the bombing of Pearl Harbor, many Japanese Americans were relocated to internment camps during the war. Some of the young men in these camps were offered a spot in the military to prove to the United States their allegiance. The choice was to go overseas and fight with the Japanese, or stay home and go to prison. In this novel, Ichiro decides to go to prison. Though he loves the life he has in America, he can't justify killing people to prove his loyalty. This story begins on the day Ichiro comes back from prison. His family accepts him, and his mother is proud to have a child who would not go back and fight with his people, but the rest of the country does not feel the same. Ichiro is ostracized for not going to war as a traitor, and he must pick up the pieces of his life with the little dignity he has left.
• Critical evaluation: No-No Boy is the heartbreaking tale of one man's struggle to return to a normal life after being sent to prison for not going to war with the Americans against Japan. When asked to join the military, Ichiro said he would only go if his parents could be located in the same internment camp. It was a gamble he hoped would earn his family a small amount of happiness, but it did not work and instead, Ichiro spent two years in jail as punishment. Ichiro is spat upon, loses his mother, and has a hard time building up the confidence to find work for himself, but ultimately, Ichiro decides he must try to live a normal life and resist the demons in his head that tell him he is a failure. This is an excellent novel about the hard choices we have to make, and how sometimes, even if it doesn't work out the way we planned it, we make the best of it anyway.
• Reader's annotation: Ichiro didn't say he wouldn't join the military, but what he said got him thrown in jail anyway.
• About the author: John Okada was born in Seattle, WA and served in the U. S. Army in World War II. He died of a heart attack before he could know the impact his work would have.
• Genre: Fiction
• Curriculum ties, if any: History (World War II)
• Booktalking ideas:
• What do you think it would be like to live in an internment camp in this time period, even if you had lived your entire life as an American?
  
• Do you think Ichiro was right or wrong to do what he did?
• Reading level/interest age: 15+
• Challenge issues: Violence, racial slurs, drinking.
• Why was this item included? This item was recommended by my classmates.