Weedflower, by Cynthia Kadohata

A powerful story of a Japanese internment camp during World War II. Before Pearl Harbor Sumiko works with her uncle's family on a flower farm in southern California and dreams of owning her own flower shop. When the war starts Sumiko's family is split apart and she is moved to a camp in Arizona - a camp located on a Mojave reservation. There she works with a neighbor, Mr. Moto, to grow an award-winning garden and she befriends Frank, a young Mojave. Through her friendship with Frank, she sees the injustices perpetrated on the Native Americans and tries to reason out the very difficult decisions her family has to make. Students will relate to and understand Sumiko's feelings at each step of her amazing story. The author's father was interred at the Poston camp and she writes a moving and well written testimony to the courage and perseverance of Japanese Americans during this dark period in American history. SLJ starred review.

Grades 5 - 8

Yellow Star by Jennifer Roy

In free verse form Roy tells the story of her aunt's life and her family's survival in the Lodz ghetto in Poland during World War II. Her Aunt Syvia entered the ghetto at the age of four and was liberated the day before her 10th birthday. She was one of twelve children to survive the ghetto. Through a child's voice we learn the horrors of living in the ghetto and picture of survival for those 800 of 270,000 who lived to tell this story.
It is amazing the compassion and passion Roy evokes in such spare text.
Recommeded for 4-7 grades.