In 1942, during the war with Japan, a Japanese-American girl must leave her home. She receives a good-bye gift from her best friend, but loses it at her new home. Emi is afraid that without the bracelet Laurie will disappear from her mind forever. Warm watercolor paintings beautifully complement this story of the power of memory. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

The haunting immediacy of this moving tale may derive from its roots in Uchida's ( A Jar of Dreams ; The Best Bad Thing ) own childhood experiences--the author was interned in camps for Japanese Americans during WW II. Originally published as a short story, the book opens as Emi, her mother and sister prepare to leave their California home for a new residence: a racetrack that has been turned into a prison camp. Emi's best friend brings her a bracelet as a parting gift. Though Emi vows she will never take it off, the gold chain slips off her wrist as the girl helps clean out the filthy, abandoned stable that will serve as the family's ``apartment.'' After searching for it in vain, Emi eventually realizes that she does not need the bracelet to remember her friend, just as she does not need a photo to remember her father (who has been sent to a prisoner-of-war camp because he worked for a Japanese company); in her mother's words, such important parts of our lives ``we carry in our hearts and take with us no matter where we are sent.'' Yardley's ( The Red Ball ) hushed, realistic paintings add to the poignancy of Uchida's narrative, and help to underscore the absurdity and injustice suffered by Japanese American families such as Emi's. Ages 4-8. Copyright 1993 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Gr 2-5-It is 1942, and seven-year-old Emi is being sent from her home in Berkeley, California, to an internment camp with her mother and older sister. Her father was arrested earlier and incarcerated in a camp in Montana. Temporarily herded into stables at a race track with other Japanese-American families, Emi realizes that she has lost the bracelet that her best friend, Laurie Madison, gave her as a parting keepsake. At first desolate, she soon realizes that she does not need the token after all, as she will always carry Laurie in her heart and mind. Uchida employs a simple, descriptive style, allowing the child's feelings to give punch to this vignette without becoming sentimental. An afterword gives brief, dignified historical context to the story. Yardley's watercolor illustrations both match and amplify the text at every point, evincing the greatest sensitivity to the depiction of character and to historical accuracy. This deceptively simple picture book will find a ready readership and prove indispensable for introducing this dark episode in American history.-John Philbrook, San Francisco Public LibraryCopyright 1993 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Ages 6-10. Like many other books by Uchida, this picture book story is based on her own experience as a Japanese American interned in a prison camp during World War II. A brief afterword summarizes the general facts and figures of the injustice and the recent restitution, but the story and pictures are about one child, Emi, and her bewilderment and sadness: leaving her empty house, saying goodbye to her best friend, traveling with her mother and older sister to the abandoned Tanforan Racetracks, and trying to make a home in a dark, dirty horse stall. Before Emi leaves Berkeley, her best friend gives her a bracelet. Emi's heartbroken when she loses the gift in the camp, but she comes to realize that she doesn't need a bracelet to remember what she loved and left behind. The bracelet becomes a metaphor for the gift of friendship, the loss, and the enduring bond. Yardley's watercolor paintings show the long lines of people and the barbed wire and also the heartfelt emotion, as when Emi hugs her friend goodbye. Rooted as this story is, it is about the wartime refugee experience everywhere, and kids will identify with the injustice that could suddenly invade an ordinary home right here on their street. (Reviewed Sept. 15, 1993)039922503XHazel Rochman From: Syndetics Solutions, Inc. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.