Shirley Freeman's Reviews > Facing the Mountain: A True Story of Japanese American Heroes in World War II

Daniel James Brown, author of The Boys in the Boat, has written another amazing WWII era book. In this case, Brown learned the stories of several Japanese American families from Hawaii and the west coast whose lives were altered so dramatically by the events initiated on December 7th, 1941. Most of the families ended up incarcerated in internment camps losing most of their possessions and life-long businesses in the process. Many of their young men chose to join the military once they were allowed to. The segregated fighting unit of Japanese American soldiers were some of the toughest, most heroic soldiers in the war. They truly made a difference in the outcome of the war. One of the young men he followed chose to fight the racist system (incarcerate the parents, send the sons to war in segregated units) by refusing to sign certain paperwork and therefore going to jail. Through the words and actions of specific people, Brown tells the stories of Pearl Harbor, incarceration, army induction, war (some of that was really hard to read... much less experience), concentration camp, witnessing the atomic bomb, and reintegrating into society. History comes alive, for better and worse, with Brown's well-researched, enthralling tale.