Korea, 1943, under Japanese occupation: As a haenyeo, a female diver of the sea, Hana enjoys an independence that few other Koreans can still claim. Until the day she saves her younger sister from a Japanese soldier and is herself captured and transported to Manchuria. There she is forced to become a 'comfort woman' in a Japanese military brothel. South Korea, 2011: Emi has spent more than sixty years trying to forget the sacrifice her sister made....

"A new novel from Lisa See, the New York Times bestselling author of The Tea Girl of Hummingbird Lane, about female friendship and family secrets on a small Korean island. Mi-ja and Young-sook, two girls living on the Korean island of Jeju, are best friends that come from very different backgrounds. When they are old enough, they begin working in the sea with their village's all-female diving collective, led by Young-sook's mother. As the girls take...

"A sweeping novel set in Singapore during the years leading up to its independence from British colonial powers, about one young boy from a rural fishing family and the love story that will shape his life and complicate the fate of his larger community"-- Ah Boon is born into a fishing village amid the heat and beauty of twentieth-century coastal Singapore in the waning years of British rule. He is a gentle boy who is not much interested in fishing,...

"In April 1942, the Imperial Japanese Army steamrolled through Burma, capturing the only ground route from India to China. Supplies to this critical zone would now have to come from India by air-meaning across the Himalayas, on the most hazardous air route in the world. SKIES OF THUNDER is a story of an epic human endeavor, in which Allied troops faced the monumental challenge of operating from airfields hacked from the jungle, and took on "the Hump,"...

The 85-year-old Jiro Ono is considered by many to be the world's greatest sushi chef. He is the proprietor of a 10-seat sushi-only restaurant inauspiciously located in a Tokyo subway station. Despite its humble appearances, it is the first restaurant of its kind to be awarded a prestigious 3-star Michelin review, and sushi lovers from around the globe make repeated pilgrimages, calling months in advance and shelling out top dollar for a coveted seat...

"A stunning graphic memoir recounting actor/author/activist George Takei's childhood imprisoned within American concentration camps during World War II. Experience the forces that shaped an American icon -- and America itself -- in this gripping tale of courage, country, loyalty, and love. George Takei has captured hearts and minds worldwide with his captivating stage presence and outspoken commitment to equal rights. But long before he braved new...

"Malaya, 1945. Cecily Alcantara's family is in terrible danger: her fifteen-year-old son, Abel, has disappeared, and her youngest daughter, Jasmin, is confined in a basement to prevent being pressed into service at the comfort stations. Her eldest daughter Jujube, who works at a tea house frequented by drunk Japanese soldiers, becomes angrier by the day. Cecily knows two things: that this is all her fault; and that her family must never learn the...

Using interviews with the families of the protagonists as well as deep archival research, Brown portrays the kaleidoscopic journey of four Japanese-American families and their sons, who volunteered for 442nd Regimental Combat Team. Deployed to France, Germany, and Italy, they were asked to do the near impossible. Brown also tells the story of these soldiers' parents, immigrants who were forced to shutter the businesses they had spend decades building,...

This book provides an authoritative account of the internment of more than 120,000 Japanese-Americans and Japanese aliens during World War II. Less than three months after Japan bombed Pearl Harbor and inflamed the nation, President Roosevelt signed an executive order declaring parts of four western states to be a war zone operating under military rule. The U.S. Army immediately began rounding up thousands of Japanese-Americans, sometimes giving them...

Kindergartner Yoko not only learns to write her letters and numbers in English, she shows her teacher and fellow students how to write their names using Japanese calligraphy.