28 May / Music for Alice by Allen Say [in AsianWeek]
Based on the true story of Alice Sumida, a Japanese American woman who, with her husband Mark, established the country’s largest gladiola flower bulb farm. Forced from their home post-9066 that sanctioned the removal of 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent into concentration camps for the duration of World War II, Alice and her husband follow their adventurous streak and choose to farm a field of stones in an Oregon desert rather than be interned. Say’s unforgettable, haunting pictures capture the Sumidas’ new life where, in spite of the harshness, they are able to make flowers grow where only barrenness once existed.
Review: “New and Notable Books,” AsianWeek, May 28, 2004
Readers: Children
Published: 2004