Wednesday 19 February 2020

This light between us by Andrew Fukuda

Audio CD
Published January 7th 2020 by Macmillan Young Listeners
Historical fiction
In exchange for an honest review

I knew it would come a time when this would turn sad, and I kept on hoping that there would be light at the end of that tunnel.

Two 10 year olds become penpals. A world apart, and they will come to mean everything to each other. Alex is Japanese-American, who grows up on a strawberry farm. Charlie is Jewish and lives in Paris.

They keep on writing and the years go by. Charlie sees how people change, soon there are Germans in the streets, but nothing bad could ever happen, right?

For Alex is happens faster. Pearl Harbor, growing tension, interment camps. 

People are stupid, people are evil. Why weren't every German American or Italian American in camps then too? I guess there had to be on evil enemy that did not look like the rest. I guess one has to be grateful that everyone was just not killed outright.

And I kept wondering about Charlie. Since there are no more letters due to obvious reasons we have no idea knowing what happens to her.

The cover does tell that he will enlist. And of course he will search for her, and break my heart.

The narrator was great. He sounded familiar, but I have not listened to him before. He did well with their different voices and I felt I was right there, on suicide hill.

A good book, that would make a really good movie. Oh this is really one of those that needs to be a movie too. Especially in these times.

In 1935, ten-year-old Alex Maki from Bainbridge Island, Washington is disgusted when he's forced to become pen pals with Charlie Levy of Paris, France--a girl. He thought she was a boy. In spite of Alex's reluctance, their letters continue to fly across the Atlantic--and along with them the shared hopes and dreams of friendship. Until the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor and the growing Nazi persecution of Jews force them to confront the darkest aspects of human nature.

From the desolation of an internment camp on the plains of Manzanar to the horrors of Auschwitz and the devastation of European battlefields, the only thing they can hold onto are the memories of their letters. But nothing can dispel the light between them. 

18 comments:

  1. Oh sounds really good and sad. And some German Americans were kept in Internment camps but not as extensive as the Japanese but not the Italians

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    Replies
    1. It was mentioned, but yeah not the same scope at all :/ And where they even whole families?

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  2. Is this epistolary? It sounds really good.

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    Replies
    1. I honestly do not know, I guess? I mean I listened to the audio book and yes the first ones are letters, but when her letters stop...also in the mean time we see him go on with life

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  3. There are so many books that should be movies. Glad to hear you liked this one.

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  4. No sad! lol

    This sounds wonderful but it's so hard for me to read books like this. I'm upset for weeks after.

    Karen @ For What It's worth

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  5. Yeah, seems like a story made for film - and to be honest, it's a story I'd rather watch than read!

    ~Mogsy @ BiblioSanctum

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  6. Ah such hard times and gut wrenching by the sound of it. So sad.

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  7. Soo... read with my tissue box nearby. Got it. :)

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