I finally finished this adult novel. And I say finally because it took me about a week and that is tooooo long. First of all, it's preachy. From the very first chapter, I thought the author should have just said, "Japanese-American internment camps are really, really bad and we should be ashamed of this part of our history."
Once you get past the preachiness, the plot is pretty good. I like the young character Rennie and her family. Daisy, the young Japanese-American girl who works for the family, is wonderful. The "mean boys" of the town are cliched characters. The whole plot line of the mysterious murder and rape of a little girl really adds to the book, but I didn't really like how it all wraps up nicely in the end.
All in all, I think this could be added to an American History reading list. But I think I'll have a hard time selling this book to students. I don't know if they'll get through the first three chapters to the little girl getting killed. That's when the book gets interesting.
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