Sylvia & Aki

Gr 4—6—Sylvia Mendez is excited to be living on a rented southern California farm where her father is the boss instead of a field hand. She dreams of her first day of third grade at Westminster School and is devastated when her aunt is told that she and her siblings cannot register. They have to go to the Hoover School next to the barrio since they are "Mexican." That Sylvia is American does not matter. Meanwhile Aki Munemitsu, the girl who used to live on the farm, has been moved to Poston, a Japanese internment camp in Arizona, with her mother and brother. She, too, is American, but Pearl Harbor has made that irrelevant. Aki misses her room, her belongings, and her privacy. Told in alternating chapters from the girls' points of view, this story about institutional racism will enlighten readers to events in recent history. From the court case of Mendez v. Westminster to the conditions at Poston, readers will be moved by this novel based on true events. Back matter include notes about the Mendez and Munemitsu families, essays on internment camps and the end of school segregation, and photos of Sylvia and Aki as children.—Stacy Dillon, LREI, New York City