"When Keiko arrived in California from Japan to live with her Aunt Emi and Uncle Henry, she secretly conforted herself with the knowledge that she would be staying for only a year....How Keiko finds a way to help her uncle and how eventually they come to understand and love one another make a warmhearted story.".
Eleven-year-old Rinko grows up in a closely-knit Japanese American family in California during the Depression where she experiences a great deal of prejudice and indifference.
After their release from an American concentration camp, a Japanese-American girl and her family try to reconstruct their lives amidst strong anti-Japanese feelings which breed fear, distrust, and violence.
At first dismayed at having to spend the last month of her summer vacation helping out in the household of recently widowed Mrs. Hata, Rinko discovers there are pleasant surprises for her, but then bad things start to happen.
Children's author Uchida, who grew up in California as a second-generation Japanese American, describes her childhood and her family's internment in a Nevada concentration camp during World War II.
