Number the Stars

Lowry, Lois. Number the Stars, 1998. 137p. ISBN 9780440227533. 

In 1940, Denmark is invaded by Germany, and German soldiers stand at every street corner. For children, it represented the end of parties, cakes, and fireworks in the sky. Following the German invasion, Annemarie's older sister, who was due to get married, died in a car accident, and the family rarely talks about her. In the two years since the occupation, the lives of Annemarie Johansen and her family have become harder with food restrictions and curfews, but not exceedingly so. That is, until the Germans began hunting Danish jews. Annemarie's best friend, Ellen Rosen, is Jewish, and she and her family are now in danger.

With the help of Danish rebels and saboteurs, of whom Lisa was once a member, Annemarie finds herself in the middle of a family plan to help the Rosens escape Denmark for the relative safety of Sweden. At ten years old, Annemarie will need to summon courage to outfox the Germans and help her best friend escape.

Head Lopper & the Crimson Tower

MacLean, Andrew and Jordie Bellaire. Head Lopper & The Crimson Tower. Vol 2 of the series. 2018. 200p. ISBN 9781534305083. 

Following his adventure on the island of Barra, Norgal, also known as the Head Lopper, had secured a boat and a crew for himself, the talking and conscious head of the witch Agatha, Zhaania, of the Kota, and her apprentice Xho, who was to be sold as a slave to the witches of Barra. Norgal accompanies Zhaannia and Xho to the Crimson Tower, a large structure in the jungle where the best warriors are invited every year to participate in a challenge organized by the necromancer Ulrich, the Twice Damned and master of horrors in the tower. Zhaannia is searching for her mother, who came to the Crimson Tower the last time to save the Kota village from Ulrich's depradations.

Joined by a hero of the local Fonda Leaf people, the group enters the tower, only to be confronted by deadly traps and warriors. Ulrich is thrilled that Agatha's head is in, as he wishes to add it to his collection. Navigating the challenges will be hard, but at the end stands Berserk, Ulrich's best creation and ultimate defender of the Crimson Tower. Can Norgal and his friends defeat the necromancer and rescue Zhaannia's mother and sisters?

Hawkeye: L.A. Woman. Vol. 3

Fraction, Matt. Hawkeye: L.A. Woman. Vol. 3. 2014. 120p. ISBN 978-0-7851-8390-7.

Angry at Clint Barton following his actions in Hawkeye: Little Lies, Kate Bishop packs up her bow and heads out as far away from Hawkeye and New York City as she can. She drives to Los Angeles, where she booked herself a stay at a nice resort. Unfortunately, her father cancels all of her credit cards, and Kate arrives to find herself penniless. Meanwhile, Madame Mask has been tracking her movements and, wanting to avenge herself from what happened to her at Kate's hands. She befriends Kate in her hour of need, and welcomes her to her home. Of course Kate recognizes the danger she is in, but she takes this opportunity to cripple her enemy's operations. Things don't turn out as planned, and she soon flees the house.

Penniless but armed with an unhealthy overabundance of confidence, Kate finds a place to stay and offers her services as a private hero ready to solve anyone's problem. Tracking down rare orchids reveals that the villain behind this mystery works for Madame Mask. As the plot thickens, Kate decides to infiltrate Madame Mask's compound one more time. The information she discovers, however, completely upends her world!

Sisters Matsumoto

 Gotanda, Philip Kan. Sisters Matsumoto. 2019. ISBN 9781682660850. 

The three Matsumoto sisters have always been close-knit. They grew up on a prosperous farm in California, but when the U.S. was Pearl Harbor was attacked on December 7, 1941, their world suddenly changed. Japanese-Americans living on the West Coast were ordered to report to train stations, where they were loaded in trains with blinds to prevent them seeing where they were heading. They soon found themselves in an internment camp. As the war rolled towards its conclusion, the Matsumoto family was released, and the sisters returned to California minus their father, who died in the camp.

Back home, they soon realize that life will not return to what it was before Pearl Harbor. For one, their father, worried about who would take care of the farm while they were gone, and needing money to support his family, sold the farm while they were in the camp, and never told his daughters. Their house still stands filled with memories, but it will soon be occupied by someone else. As the sisters pick up the pieces of their pre-war life, they begin contemplating what their future holds.

Pair this audiobook with We Hereby Refuse and Displacement for a well-rounded view of the Japanese-American war experience in the 1940s.

We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration

Abe, Frank and Tamiko Nimura. We Hereby Refuse: Japanese American Resistance to Wartime Incarceration. 2021. 160p. ISBN 9781634059763. 

Following the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor on December 7, 1941, the United States government mandated the internment of all Japanese living on the U.S. West Coast, regardless of their citizenship status. For the first time in its history, the United States was imprisoning people without due process. 

Three Japanese families find themselves sent on trains away from their homes, businesses, and farms, and to concentration camps in the interior. Faced with injustice and oppression, Japanese-Americans fought back. Some, having been denied their rights, refused to be drafted and serve in the military. Others refused to sign a loyalty oath. Some contested their illegal imprisonment all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court. Despite court rulings that found the internment a legal measure in war, Japanese-Americans never stop seeking redress.

Released near the end of the war, they returned to lives ruined. Businesses had been sold, homes grabbed by jealous neighbors, and jobs filled by others. An entire community was despoiled. Still they fought, and in 1988 the U.S. government recognized its actions had been wrong, and provided compensation to survivors. 

Beautifully illustrated from historical records, this book showcases a viewpoint that is oftentimes ignored. Fans of history will appreciate the author's attention to detail and his accurate portrayal of life in the camps. This book can be paired with Displacement for another view on the internment of Japanese-Americans.

1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus

Mann, Charles C. 1491: New Revelations of the Americas Before Columbus. 2005. 563p. ISBN 9781400032051.

History books have taught us that when the first Europeans arrived in the New World in 1492, the land was lush, the game plenty, the living easy, and the inhabitants few and far between. New England colonists found several abandoned settlements where they could readily farm the land. In Central America, consquitadors found powerful kingdoms but were able to bring them down quickly with guns, steel, and horses, a story that repeated itself in South America. 

But what did the Americas look like in 1491, before Columbus crossed the Atlantic? In this book, Mann draws on archeological evidence, oral histories, and written reports sent by the first Europeans to build a better picture of the lives of Americans prior to colonization. Previous theories of the crossing of the Bering sea all at once have been debunked, with archeological evidence indicating that people lived in South America more than 16,000 years ago. The idea that the first residents were living in harmony with their environment is at best a simplification, as all humans shaped their environment to fit the way they lived. The Amazonian jungle, for example, is not a place where plants grew randomly, but was rather developed and harvested by its residents for thousands of year, spreading fruits and building groves, mounds, and fish traps that would provide food year-round.

Fabled cities such as Tenochtitlan featured running water, something European cities no longer had. Cities were an order of magnitude order larger than their European counterpart. Rich artwork and massive stone structures still dot the landscape in Mexico, hinting at wealthy and culturally advanced societies. And in North America, the Iroquois confederacy developed the first truly democratic form of government, with women in charge of naming clan leaders and holding title to property. Men could wage war, but only after a council had unanimously declared it so, and women possessed veto power. Susan Anthony and Alice Paul were inspired from their constitution to demand the vote for women. 

The world we have been taught existed when Columbus arrived is thus filled with errors, hearsay, and a European perspective that underplayed the role that the first Americans played in shaping the Americas and its history.

Locke & Key, Vol. 4: Keys to the Kingdom

Hill, Joe and Gabriel Rodriguez. Locke & Key, Vol. 4: Keys to the Kingdom. 2015. 152p. 978-1600108860.

With Zach still lurking and searching for the keys, Tyler, Kinsey and Bode are continuously besieged by horrors and monsters. With most of these events happening during the weekend, Tyler is slowly coming to the realization that Zach is somehow involved, since he's supposedly away in Boston doing research during this time. Bode finds a key that allows him to transform into an animal, and he becomes a bird. Zach uses the same door, and becomes a wolf that then attacks the family out in the woods.

A contemporary of the Locke children's father lives in the local asylum, and Kinsey is convinced she knows something, since her name was on the list found in an underground sea cave. Using a mirror found by Bode, she transforms into an African-American teen, and makes her way to the asylum. Unfortunately that woman also recognized Zach, and he uses one of the keys to enter her room, stumbling on Kinsey. Kinsey discovers that Dodge is an actual person.

Tyler breaks up with Jordan after finding another guy in her bed. Kinsey has a fallout with her friends after using the memory key to get in their heads. Rufus comes over to play with Bode but meets an unfriendly ghost and tells Bode that Zach Wells is the enemy. Uncle Duncan's boyfriend emerges from a coma and tells Tyler enough information to cast even more suspicion on Zach. 

With the cops snooping around, and the Locke children putting more clues together, Zach is forced to make a deadly move ...

oe Hill and Gabriel Rodriguez's Locke & Key unwinds into its fourth volume in Keys to the Kingdom. With more keys making themselves known, and the depths of the Locke family's mystery ever-expanding, Dodge's desperation to end his shadowy quest drives the inhabitants of Keyhouse ever closer to a revealing conclusion.