by Maggie Tokuda-Hall
illustrated by Yas Imamura
 
Tama is the librarian in a Japanese internment camp in 1940s Idaho. Conditions are cramped. Hygiene is poor. Some days are brutally hot, others are brutally cold. Mostly, every day feels much the same. The same fears. The same anxieties. But also the same smile meets Tama each day- a smile on the face of regular visitor, George. 
 
The rather saccharine title belies a story which never minimises the camp conditions while also showing how love preserves and expands humanity in the midst of inhumane conditions. Watch out for the double page spread with soldiers at either side while pockets of joy, resistance and self-pride play out in front of them. 
 
Inspired by the lives of the author’s grandparents and comes with a very moving author note which gives extra context about Roosevelt’s Executive Order 9066, the persecution of Japanese Americans post Pearl Harbour and how these events, way back in  history, are also “very much the story of America here and now”. 
 
‘Told with a quiet dignity and some phrases are memorable: “caught in their pages were worlds bursting with colour and light, love and fairness”- books of course!’ (Eileen, Former Primary Teacher, Letterbox Library reviewer). Age 5-8, Paperback 34pp