LitPick Review
It's 1941 and 10-year-old Fumio Miyota has everything he'll ever need: a loving family, Zachary his best friend and neighbor, and Flyer, his devoted dog who has been with Fumio nearly all his life. He spends time helping out in his family's strawberry farm in Bainbridge Island, Washington and hanging out with Zachary, thinking that nothing could ever shatter the peace of the near-utopia he lives in. Until it does. Out of the blue, the U.S. declares war on Japan, and the Miyotas and thousands of other Japanese Americans are forced to leave behind homes, lives, and friends they've forged and reside in crowded relocation centers where people don't hold back from racial insults and the shacks they are assigned to are a far cry from the comfort of their original houses. Although they are American citizens, there is fear and suspicion of people of Japanese descent nursing loyalty towards the Japanese side of the war. In this historical fiction, Fumio faces hardship, violent uprisings, and homesickness at Camp Manzanar in the Californian desert. In the meantime, we also get to see through the eyes of Flyer in their neighbors' care, as he navigates his world without his owners.
Opinion:
I absolutely appreciate the level of research Shirley Miller Kamada had to undertake to finish her book and the new knowledge I have gained from it. I enjoyed learning about Japanese culture and thought the family dynamic between Fumio, his four-year-old sister Kimiko, and their parents was very sweet. The writing style was simple to comprehend and the pacing was just right. I really love the title as well: No Quiet Water implicating unrest and a lack of peace, which is exactly what the plot of the book is about. Personally, Flyer being a narrator felt sort of unrealistic and his chapters weren’t as engaging as Fumio’s were because he was a little bit too overly personified for me. Another thing that could’ve been better is that I would’ve liked the author to explore the horrors of the relocation centers further and put more emphasis on everything those people lost. At times, the dialogue was also a little stilted and too formal. As someone usually reads historical fiction books that have darker or more poignant atmospheres, I admit this story was a fun and educational experience albeit not quite what I have a tendency to read. It may appeal to middle grade audiences and people who want to learn more about the incarceration of the Japanese in 1941 or people who like quick, easy reads that don’t contain any particularly grisly content.
