Red berries🍒,White clouds🎑,Blue sky🎐 by Sandra Dallas: Book Review

I finished this novel yesterday & I’m back to share its review with u all😄

Synopsis: The story is inspired from World War 2 & describes how the lives & minds of both Japanese & American people gets affected due to it.

The story starts with Tomi Itano, a 12yr old girl, who stays in California with her family. Her father has rented a big plot of land where he grows strawberries. They’re living a happy life until 7th dec, 1941, Japanese navy attack Pearl Harbour (territory of Hawaii).

Sam(her father), gets arrested on grounds of suspicion of secretly providing information in Japan. Without any proof of crime he’s kept in jail for almost 2 yrs & every japanese family is relocated to Santa Anita & then to Colorado. From then onwards their lives changes, they learn to live amidst the barbed wires, eating the bland mess food(nothing like japanese food), with only a single room for all the members of a family.

Many good changes can be seen too. Like japanese women, who usually remained shy & reserved started speaking up, working & looking after their family (like Tomi’s mother after her father was jailed). Even Tomi started taking responsibility & an Optimistic vision can be seen among the camp people.

But everything changes again when Sam comes to the camp in Colorado. He has changed & so is Tomi…

To know whether they ever get back to their home in California, what happened to Sam & Tomi?? You need to dive into the book😉

Some of my fav lines:

1.”Into her third winter at Tallgrass, Tomi had seen enough snow to last for a long time—and enough cold. She didn’t care if she never saw another snowball. The winter wind whipped across the prairie that day with nothing but barbed-wire fences to stop it”.

2. Pop scowled. “I am not an American.”
“You’re not Japanese anymore,” Mom told him. “The Japanese are our enemy.”
“No, I am not Japanese either.” Pop stood up and went to the window and looked out over the camp. “What am I? I am nothing.”

Why to read?

• Simple & subtle writing style.
• Makes u ponder over small but important aspects of life (like the mentality of small kids in such hard situations). Also, a lot of emphasis has been given on how japanese women became independent in the camp when there was no control of their husbands. But how men felt inferior,irritated & no more ‘the head of house” as their wives started working.
• Very short read (180 pages only)😉

Why not to read?

• It’s a children’s book😂( for 10-15yrs old). I came to know after reading half of it, still there’s no age for reading 😅, it’s completely your choice to read this.
• Predictable story arc! Many things are written so simply that it’s almost predictable (which tbh I don’t prefer in a book🙌😅)
• Story could have been more solid if it was written detailedly about its theme,i.e, the effects of war on Japanese life.
• Many small errors. For eg. Ralph Carr, governor of Colorado, was still the governor in 1945 in book, but in reality he left office in 1942!

Wrapping it all up, it’s a one time read for children, as it’s explained taking a fictional story which is easy to understand. And if you are more interested in knowing about World War 2, u can find many other great books on Google. Also, I learnt a Japanese phrase😁- “Shikata ga nai” meaning It can’t be helped!🙌(yeaa!💃😂)

Ratings- 3.5/5

So tell me in the comments about ur views. Till then happy reading 😊💜💙