A Place Where Sunflowers Grow

This is a children's book about a young girl named Mari who, with her family, has been sent to the Topaz camp. The author's grandmother and mother had booth been at Topaz.

Each page has very nice drawings on it, and they show life as it was at the camp. The family was in a one-room apartment (using the term extremely loosely.) The toilets are shown as having no doors on them. There could be major dust-storms at any time. One of the guard towers is shown.

Also, the things that the author refers to are things that really happened. For example, during the stay at Tanforan Assembly Center, Her fictional character Mari and her parents stayed at a horse stall that still smelled of manure.

The book is the story of Mari coming to terms with what happened, trying to find out why she and the others were in the camp, and realizing that eventually it would be over and, for the time, she should make the best of a bad situation.

A very nice, yet at the same time very informative book for young readers.



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