Peace is A Chain Reaction: How World War II Japanese Balloon Bomb Brought People of Two Nations Together. Tanya Lee Stone. [Plenty of photographs]. 2022. [September] 176 pages. [Source: Library]
First sentence: From a very young age, we can be taught to hate or fear people who are different from us. Sometimes this racism is buried so deep, it can be hard to see. Sometimes it is clearly visible. War is one of the more obvious ways in which entire nations can be taught to hate--and fear--people of other nations.
Premise/plot: Some books are hard to summarize, Peace Is A Chain Reaction is one of them. It tells primarily of three stories during the second world war: the internment camps of Japanese-Americans, specifically focusing in on one family; a group of young teenage girls [Japanese] whose school closed down to become a factory--a factory where balloon bombs were made; and an American community shaken by the death of six children [or perhaps five children and an adult] due to the resulting explosion of a balloon bomb. Yuzuru John Takeshita, who spent time in several internment/prison camps, brought these two communities together. The book provides context for the second world war and brings to light these events for young readers.
My thoughts: I thought I was relatively well informed on the subject of world war II. I had never heard of the Japanese inventing/using/implementing balloon bombs. I had never heard of balloon bombs successfully reaching the United States and detonating. This was hushed up during the war for various reasons. I'd also never heard or thought about young Japanese women [teenagers] doing factory work, war factory work. So while I'd heard plenty about Japanese-American internment/imprisonment camps, so much of this was new to me. For that reason alone it was a worthwhile read for me.
I liked how these stories were woven together to tell a cohesive story.
© 2023 Becky Laney of Becky's Book Reviews
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