Welcome to the Slant, where you'll find reviews and original writings by the members of Martin Library's Teen Advisory Board.

Saturday, June 7, 2008

So Far From the Bamboo Grove – Yoko Watkins


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A fictionalized autobiography in which eleven-year-old Yoko escapes from Korea to Japan with her mother and sister at the end of World War II.

1 comment:

melonbarmonster said...

Please don't be fooled by the well-written narrative.

This book is akin to an escape narrative of an SS officer's family running away from Birkenow Auschwitz concentration camp while the heroin daughters of Nazi officers suffers from vengeful, cruel and dangerous Jews freed from concentration camps.

Such a narrative is a distortion of historical reality, morally irresponsible and simply disgusting material to force upon innocent children. The fact that this book is being taught to children across the US is a travesty born out of ignorance of East Asian history.

There are no bamboos in NK. There were no communist soldiers when Yoko's family left for Japan and there certainly were no US bombings. The Japanese retreat occurred under heavy military protection and Yoko family was in North Korea to expand and subjugate Korea and China while being driven by a racist imperialist Japan ideology that saw the Japanese emperor as being a DIVINE being and the Japanese race as being SUPERIOR and destined to rule over Asia and the Pacific including western US.

Stay away from this book if you value humanity and decency. America is better than this.