198 pages
Published The University of Arkansas Press October 2011
Source: TLC Book Tours and the publisher
Twelve-year-old Chess Morton lives in Rook, Arkansas, a speck of a town in the Black Bayou, with her widowed mother. Despite living deep in the south in the early 1940's, Chess lives her life largely oblivious to the world around her. Until her grandfather sells a piece of land that Chess inherited from her father to the U.S. Government. Following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the government relocated thousands of Japanese Americans to camp throughout the U.S. Camp Nine, one of these camps, sprang from the land that had been Chess' and would serve to change her life.
Chess' mother offers to teach art lessons to the prisoners of Camp Nine, befriending many of the families, particularly the Matsuis. Although reluctant to have anything to do with the camp at first, Chess is soon fast friends with both of the Matsui boys. Her relationship with each of them will enrich and enlighten her but it will be many years later before David Matsui finally teaches Chess exactly what it was that she was protected from as she was growing up in the bayou.
This is one of those books that made me glad that I've always been willing to take a chance with books I've never heard of; thanks to TLC Book Tours for always bringing them to my attention. Schiffer's debut is lovely and charming in a way that is utterly unexpected given the very tough subjects that it tackles. She immerses her reader deep into the Mississippi delta and an area of open racism and brings to life the divide between black and white, rich and poor. Chess brings to mind an older Scout Finch as she comes to terms with the reality of the relationships between herself and those around her. Just as Scout came to view her father as a complete person, Chess comes to see her mother as someone more than just a mother.
"She never voiced her frustration about it to me, but I realize she could have picked up and left with me then, gone to another state, and fought him [Chess' grandfather]. But she understood that my place was on the plantation, whatever it might mean to her personal freedom. I wish I'd understood then all of the choices she made to preserve my interests over her own."
Readers will undoubtedly recall Jamie Ford's The Hotel On The Corner of Bitter and Sweet when reading Camp Nine, as both deal with the Japanese interment camps. But where Hotel dealt strictly with the situation from the Japanese point of view, Camp Nine details how the impact the camps may have had on the areas surrounding them as well as bringing to light life in these "camps."
Camp Nine would make a wonderful book club selection with much to discuss and a book to enjoy. For more opinions on this book, check out the full tour at TLC Book Tours.
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| Vivienne Schiffer |
This sounds great. I agree it would be very interesting to get the perspective of people in the surrounding area. Thanks for the insightful review!
ReplyDeleteThank you so much for your review, Lisa - I hope your readers will like Camp Nine.
ReplyDeleteVivienne Schiffer
PS, Lisa - (you may already know this, but your readers might find it interesting) the symbol for the War Through the Generations reading challenge on your site is a crane holding barbed wire in its beak. It's the Japanese American Monument to Freedom in Washington, D.C., dedicated to the Japanese American incarceration experience. I was at the opening of that monument in 2000. It was such a moving ceremony and it's a stunning sculpture. Vivienne
ReplyDeleteIt's hard to imagine a book about the internment camps being "lovely" and "charming," so you've made me really excited about reading this book. Great review! I will link to it on War Through the Generations.
ReplyDeleteOh, this does sound like an interesting story, and I think I read another positive review of this one the other day. I haven't read much about internment camps, and so that's another reason why I want to check this one out. I am glad to hear that you connected so deeply with it. You wrote a wonderful review. Thanks!
ReplyDeleteThe cover is so innocent. I didn't realize it was about the Japanese interment camps.
ReplyDeleteWhat you said about doing the book tours.. I don't do them often, but I do them for the same reason you mentioned. They take me outside of my comfort zone (usually) and that's good for any reader.
I just finished Ford's book and really enjoyed it. Looks like I need to add this one too. Wonderful review!
ReplyDeleteThis sounds fabulous. And the cover is gorgeous!
ReplyDeleteI loved the way you described this book, so much so, that I MUST read it!
ReplyDeleteI'm glad that you took a chance on this one too! It is high on my TBR list - I can't wait for a chance to pick it up.
ReplyDeleteThanks so much for being a part of the tour.
It's funny, what Anna mentioned about the contrast between the words "charming" and "lovely" when some aspects of the subject matter are so awful, but I agree that there is something about Chess' perspective that makes it work.
ReplyDeleteIn some ways she seems an "old" 12 and in other ways a "young" 12, which is exactly right for 12 in my opinion...caught in between. I wonder what the book would have been like told from one of the other characters' perspective...