SuitabookGaijin
Matt Faulkner
- Reading
- Read it together or check in after scenes of rejection, conflict or confinement. Afterwards, use the author’s note and resources, if included, to separate the story’s personal focus from the wider history.
- Themes
- Belonging and mixed identity: Koji is half Japanese and half white; he is treated as an outsider on the streets and within the camp. The story presents belonging as shaped by other people’s prejudice rather than simply by Koji’s own identity.
- Racism and state power: After Pearl Harbor, Koji faces accusations and exclusion, then receives a summons to an internment camp despite being a citizen. The language of rejection and imprisonment, alongside Koji’s anger and frustration, presents this treatment as harmful and unjust.
- Family separation and uncertainty: Koji’s father has returned to Japan, and Koji worries that he may be fighting for Japan while Koji and his mother face internment. The book leaves its stance open to more than one reading.
- Worth knowing
- Expect upsetting material involving racist insults, exclusion, detention and poor living conditions. Koji is also drawn into fights and gossip, so a child may value space to pause and talk.