WATKINS, Yoko Kawashima. So Far From the Bamboo Grove. New York: Beech Tree Books, 1994, 183p., ISBN 0-688-13115-8, (hc), $21.75.

This memoir for grades 4 and up is based on the accounts of the author, Yoko Kawashima, as a child growing up in Korea during the end of World War II. As Japanese, Yoko and her family are forced to flee Korea when the Korean Communist army comes to kill the entire family. Yoko’s family is constantly in danger because Yoko’s father works for the Japanese government in Manchuria. Yoko, her mother and her sister flee by train from Pusan to Seoul, where their only hope to live is to board a ship headed for Japan.

Yoko Kawashima Watkins now lives in Cape Cod, married to an American and is the mother of four children. She learned to master English specifically to record her courageous and nightmarish story as a child. When Yoko was younger, she always knew she wanted to be a writer and spent her adult life writing her accounts. Writing So Far From the Bamboo Grove proved difficult, as the pain and horror of her past took years to get down on paper. Yoko’s book won the ALA Notable Children’s Book award, and the Parents’ Choice Gold Award. Yoko also went on to write a sequel to this book called My Brother, My Sister, and I (1996).

So Far From the Bamboo Grove offers a unique perspective of the war seen through the eyes of a child. Most WWII accounts are collected from those who fought in the war, or were adults during the war. This book also offers insight into what happened to the Japanese who were trapped in Korea when the war ended in 1945. Horrifying accounts of Yoko and her travels etch vivid pictures of the trials she suffered. Yoko and her family had to hide from the Korean Communist Army in the hospital car with the ill. While on the train, a woman whose baby died during the beginning of the trip was upset the nurses had it tossed from the crowded car like garbage. In grief the mother jumped from the train after the dead baby, killing herself. This account through Yoko’s young eyes, only tugs at the heart and the audience immediately wants to protect her from the tragedies that follow. While Yoko’s accounts are realistically childish in nature, (she hates her sister for being mean or dislikes carrots at dinner time), she also shows a great amount of maturity for a child at ten. Yoko’s dedication for her family and courage to survive inspires the audience and is an excellent example of the child heroine.

Other titles that are similar in nature to So Far From the Bamboo Grove also offer the same sense of heroism and courageousness through grossly horrifying circumstances. The School Library Journal mentions that Yoko’s book mirrors accounts of Holocaust victims in books such as Aranka Siegal's Upon the Head of the Goat (Puffin, 1981) and Esther Hautzig's The Endless Steppe (HarperTrophy, 1968). Also, the book by Linda Sue Park When My Name Was Keoko parallels Yoko’s book because it gives an account of a Korean family living in Japan during WWII. Even though this is the opposite of Yoko’s story, the similarities of a child witnessing the atrocity of warfare and innocence lost echoes in both books. Yet, in all the books the inspiration that keeps each child alive is the yearning for the family to survive as a family. The dedication and love for one’s family is a moral that every child of every generation can understand, even if their family isn’t torn apart or trialed by war.

The hardcover edition of So Far From the Bamboo Grove can successfully withstand the use it will receive from children in a library. Its colorful cover portraying Yoko, her mother and her sister huddled in a bamboo grove trying to hide from the Korean Communist Army attracts danger and suspense, drawing readers into the book. The writing is straightforward, and surprisingly easy to read since English is Yoko’s third language. While reviews of Yoko’s sequel hint that her writing improved, it is safe to say that the writing in this book was vivid and riveting. I did not put this book down for more than a minute. The writing was suspenseful and flowed from one point to the next. This book delivers intelligence, adventure, sadness, love, and horrifyingly violent accounts without dwelling aimlessly on the past. It is reflective of Yoko’s inner strength and is a wise purchase for any library wanting to expand its collection on different human experiences of WWII.

Submitted in April 2008 by Nadia Ayesh, MLIS Student, University of Hawaii at Manoa.