Representation: Japanese main character
Trigger warnings: Displacement, refugee experiences, military violence and war themes, death of an aunt, death of parents

Sounds like a very sad book but I could enjoy this one.
Update: 8/10, this was a new arrival at one of the two libraries I go to at the time I read this and I am familiar with verse novels so I went in with high expectations and you won't believe this but guess what, I was blown away by the sheer brilliance of this! This story was set during the last months of WWII and the year after that but it still resonates. I've read several refugee stories such as Illegal by Eoin Colfer, Refugee by Alan Gratz and so many others, some were good and some were not. This book falls in the former category and I'm glad it did. The writing style was minimal but amazing and the main character was so well written I could feel bad for her as she lost almost everything like her parents, her home, and her aunt but still, she has the resilience, hope, and perseverance to keep on going. Recommended if you like verse novels or a book about immigration. The only other books that are similar to this are Other Words for Home by Jasmine Warga and Inside Out and Back Again by Thanhhà Lại, I'll surely look for that book in the future and I enjoyed the other one. ( )

Let me say upfront that I believe that children are innocent victims of war, even when it is their own country’s aggression that is at the root of their ordeal. I felt tremendous empathy for these orphaned Japanese sisters trying to escape the Russian army in pre WWII Manchuria. The verse format made the story all the more powerful. The author’s journey to writing the story, and the present day connections were also very compelling.

Though it is marketed as middle grade, I am adding it to the list of options for our Social Studies 10 historical fiction unit as there are many connections to the geopolitics of Manchuria, and to WWII, and many good discussions that could emerge.

The synopsis on the back is misleading, as you may keep waiting for Natsu to “sell” Asa, but that doesn’t happen until the last few pages of the book and was not a big part of the story for me. At its heart, this is a story of displacement, unrelenting hardships, and survival amidst unlikely odds. ( )