Sign in or 
Share this
Girl With the White Flag
ASATO, Jennifer S., The Girl With the White Flag. Tokyo: Kodansha International, 2003, 127 p. ISBN 4-7700-2931-4 (pa), $11.95. Illus.
In this translated account of a child’s experience of the Battle of Okinawa, Tomiko Higa shares her own story of heartbreak, horror, and hope during this turbulent time. Higa’s story begins a little before the war has erupted on Okinawan soil. Although they know the war has been going on in Japan for over two years, the author has never felt a great impact or pressure of the war and felt far removed from the violence and effects of the war. This short time of peace is followed by the sudden separation from her family when the war does break out on Okinawa. This book follows Tomiko’s account as she searches for her family and tries to survive the gunfire, bombshells, and hopelessness of war.
This book was originally written by Higa in Japanese and was written in retrospect as an adult. Despite this, the story is a moving account of war from a child’s perspective. What makes this book so different from most other war accounts from a child’s view is her close proximity to the violence from the war. Higa recounts of Japanese soldiers killing civilian newborns in order to keep them from crying, people committing mass suicide because of the despair, and soldiers performing hara-kiri (type of Japanese suicide) because of their severe wounds. Although there were various reasons for the high amounts of suicide during this war, including soldiers commanding civilians to commit suicide because of the “wickedness” of the American soldiers, Higa mainly attributes it to the feeling of despair that spread throughout Okinawa at that time.
I recommend this book to young adult readers since the perspective is from a child, yet the horrors seen require a mature mind. The length of this book is also appealing as it is only 126 pages, including maps, pictures, and graphs. However, this book seems to only come in one format, which is a jacketed paperback edition which makes this somewhat more expensive than the average Young Adult paperback. Higa includes photographs of her family and herself during those times of peace and this helps to make her account of what follows to ring true. The end of the book also shows a map of her travels through the battlefield and also the areas where the Japanese and American soldiers fought. Perhaps the most heart-wrenching fact at the end of the book was the grid that showed the number of civilian fatalities compared with those of the Japanese army.
One of the concerns I had regarding the accuracy of this book was whether Higa was, in fact, the girl in the photograph (a girl with the white flag). This photograph was one of the more popular photos that were taken from this war and the identity of the girl was never known. Higa remained silent about the identity of this girl until another person claimed that identity which motivated Higa to speak up about the truth of the photograph…that the girl with the white flag was Higa. However, this prompted me to wonder who was telling the truth and whether any proof was given, and whether any kind of proof could be given. Regardless of the authenticity of the identity of the girl in the photograph, this remains a gripping account of a young girl caught in the battlefield of war and ultimately delivers a story of hope and perseverance.
In this translated account of a child’s experience of the Battle of Okinawa, Tomiko Higa shares her own story of heartbreak, horror, and hope during this turbulent time. Higa’s story begins a little before the war has erupted on Okinawan soil. Although they know the war has been going on in Japan for over two years, the author has never felt a great impact or pressure of the war and felt far removed from the violence and effects of the war. This short time of peace is followed by the sudden separation from her family when the war does break out on Okinawa. This book follows Tomiko’s account as she searches for her family and tries to survive the gunfire, bombshells, and hopelessness of war.
This book was originally written by Higa in Japanese and was written in retrospect as an adult. Despite this, the story is a moving account of war from a child’s perspective. What makes this book so different from most other war accounts from a child’s view is her close proximity to the violence from the war. Higa recounts of Japanese soldiers killing civilian newborns in order to keep them from crying, people committing mass suicide because of the despair, and soldiers performing hara-kiri (type of Japanese suicide) because of their severe wounds. Although there were various reasons for the high amounts of suicide during this war, including soldiers commanding civilians to commit suicide because of the “wickedness” of the American soldiers, Higa mainly attributes it to the feeling of despair that spread throughout Okinawa at that time.
I recommend this book to young adult readers since the perspective is from a child, yet the horrors seen require a mature mind. The length of this book is also appealing as it is only 126 pages, including maps, pictures, and graphs. However, this book seems to only come in one format, which is a jacketed paperback edition which makes this somewhat more expensive than the average Young Adult paperback. Higa includes photographs of her family and herself during those times of peace and this helps to make her account of what follows to ring true. The end of the book also shows a map of her travels through the battlefield and also the areas where the Japanese and American soldiers fought. Perhaps the most heart-wrenching fact at the end of the book was the grid that showed the number of civilian fatalities compared with those of the Japanese army.
One of the concerns I had regarding the accuracy of this book was whether Higa was, in fact, the girl in the photograph (a girl with the white flag). This photograph was one of the more popular photos that were taken from this war and the identity of the girl was never known. Higa remained silent about the identity of this girl until another person claimed that identity which motivated Higa to speak up about the truth of the photograph…that the girl with the white flag was Higa. However, this prompted me to wonder who was telling the truth and whether any proof was given, and whether any kind of proof could be given. Regardless of the authenticity of the identity of the girl in the photograph, this remains a gripping account of a young girl caught in the battlefield of war and ultimately delivers a story of hope and perseverance.
Submitted in September 2009 by Jennifer Asato, LIS Student, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
DrDrewHonolulu |
Latest page update: made by DrDrewHonolulu
, Oct 5 2009, 7:19 AM EDT
(about this update
About This Update
Edited by DrDrewHonolulu
2 words added 9 words deleted view changes - complete history) |
|
Keyword tags:
None
More Info: links to this page
|
There are no threads for this page.
Be the first to start a new thread.
