Center for Children's Literature Blog

Children’s Book Committee – March 2020 Pick

Enemy Child
Author: Andrea Warren

A young child forcibly interned with his family grows up to become a congressman committed to constitutional rights. Archival photographs and extensive back matter.

Our Young Reviewer Says:

Enemy Child is about a boy who is Japanese, in World War 2 his family was taken to the camps that Japanese people were put in after Pearl Harbor. What makes this book special is that it tells the story of the person, and it’s a real story. It gives his emotions of what he felt during that time. He tells his life story, and I feel like I wouldn’t be comfortable talking about that type of stuff, like how people from his neighborhood were being taken and he was always worried his family would get arrested, his father would get arrested. His father helped Japanese people, which was the people they were targeting most. What I liked most about this book is the way he shares his feelings. There was this one quote that his father had told him about not letting people bring you down that really stood out to me.

–Alexa, 11 years old, New York, NY.

Young people who are interested in reviewing are invited to do so as we welcome the individual perspective of our age appropriate readers. If you are interested in being a reviewer, contact bookcom@bankstreet.edu.

See our Monthly Picks Archive 2012–2018, and our Monthly Picks 2019–present.