Courageous Footsteps: A WWII Novel by Diane Dettmann
By Diane Donovan, Senior Reviewer, Midwest Reviews
The majority of novels about World War II are directed to adult
audiences, but Courageous Footsteps is a story for teens and presents the
experiences of Yasu and Haro Sakamoto, who are removed (along with their
family) from their Glenville, California home and interred in a concentration
camp.
All ages will find Courageous Footsteps a gripping, eye-opening
approach, for several reasons. One is its ability to provide a stark contrast
between the comfortable, middle-class American lifestyle experienced by the
family at the novel's opening with life behind barbed wire fences after they
are removed from their home.
Few other novels, adult or teen, so adequately portray the emotions,
daily experiences, and struggles of the Japanese during this period of time.
From the moment Pearl Harbor is bombed and war is declared with the Japanese to
the President's orders to take away their lives, Courageous Footsteps
progresses swiftly and documents the quick rise of fear and its accompanying
prejudice, which place the family in constant danger and flux.
Nearly overnight, the Sakamotos become enemies of the people and are
attacked, beaten, and maligned by strangers who only see their Japanese faces
and not their American identities. Their personal possessions (radios, guns,
cameras, binoculars) are confiscated by the Army in the name of national
security, the family is forced to do the best it can under prison conditions,
and camp regulations take over their formerly-free lives.
How does a family stay together and preserve their shattered dreams
under such conditions? Courageous Footsteps is as much a story of this survival
process as it is a documentation of one girl's evolving determination to escape
this impossible life and resume her dreams.
Teens and new adult audiences alike will find Courageous Footsteps
evocative, compelling, and hard to put down.
Diane's Website http://www.outskirtspress.com/footsteps
