Eyes of the Emperor

Eddie Okubo's father prepares to send Eddie "home" from Hawaii to Japan for college. Eddie sees himself as more American than Japanese and enlists in the army in 1941. After Pearl Harbor he serves with loyalty and distinction, in spite of the ignorance, prejudice, and abuse he encounters in the army. Robert Ramirez relates this stunning piece of historical fiction about a less-than-proud moment in American history. He narrates with authority and believability, and his accents and emotions are true to the characters. A glossary defines many of the Hawaiian and Japanese words, and the author's note at the end places this novel in its historical context, making the story even more powerful. N.E.M. (c) AudioFile 2006, Portland, Maine

Starred review from September 5, 2005
In the fall of 1941, Eddy Okubo, 16, alters his birth certificate to enlist in the U.S. Army, serving alongside his older "dock dog" buddies who are completing boot camp in their native Hawaii. Eddy's father, a boat builder of Japanese descent, is initially aghast, but after the "cowardly and shameful" sneak attack on the U.S. fleet in Pearl Harbor, realizes his son has acted honorably. Eddy has second thoughts when he and his mates report for duty and find themselves under suspicion—indeed even under armed watch at times—solely because of their ancestry. Asked repeatedly to prove themselves, Eddy's unit members do their job and maintain their dignity until one assignment rattles the men's resolve. Based on a real experiment that took place on an island off Mississippi, Eddy and other Japanese-American soldiers are used as "bait" for dogs the Army is training to hunt and kill enemies in the Pacific. (In an author's note, Salisbury reports interviewing eight of the 26 actual participants.) The novel brims with memorable and haunting scenes—the chaos that ensues in Honolulu after the bombing, the Japanese sailor who is so disgraced after his capture that he asks to be shot, the dog training which involved laying horsemeat on the soldiers' necks to teach the dogs to go for the kill. A companion novel to Salisbury's Under the Blood-Red Sun
, this is a valuable and gripping addition to the canon of WW II historical fiction from a perspective young readers rarely see. Ages 12-up.