This Light Between Us

Ten-year-old Alex Maki is disgusted to find he has been accidentally been paired with a girl for his international pen pal, but Carlie Levy's enthusiasm is undaunted, and the two quickly become friends.  In fact, even years after the assignment is finished, they are still communicating even as life becomes more difficult for both of them on opposite sides of the Atlantic.

After the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, Alex's family is sent to an internment camp along with other Japanese Americans.  His father is being held at another camp, his mother is aging by the day under the strain, and his older brother who was once a hero has become idle and embittered.  Alex's light in the darkness of the camp is his letters from Charlie.

Life in Paris becomes increasingly difficult for French Jews like Charlie.  She tries to remain optimistic, but Alex is horrified by the tales she tells of Nazi-occupied Paris.  When her letters stop abruptly, he is desperate for news of her safety especially after he reads a news article about Nazi death camps.

When a recruiting officer shows up at Alex's camp, many people are angry.  Why should they fight for a country that treats them like criminals?  But Alex begins to have hope.  The recruitment officer has promised to reunite his father with the rest of the family, and he secretly hopes he can make it to France to find Charlie.

But war is worse than anything Alex could have imagined, and it seems impossible he could find Charlie amid all the chaos and blood of WWII Europe.

Andrew Fukuda's new book is heartbreaking and dark and reveals the horrors of war for European Jews and the injustices done to Japanese Americans.  Charlie's story is one we have heard before.  It is a terrible story of pain and genocide--one which we must continue to tell.  Alex's story is not as commonly known.  Most people would rather sweep the truths of racism and Japanese internment under the rug, but it is a painful truth that while Americans were off fighting the good war for truth and justice in Europe and the Pacific, many communities in this country were marginalized and stripped of their rights as citizens.  Highly recommended for grades 8 and up.