The Last Year of the War
EliseSontagisatypicalIowafourteen-year-oldin1943--awareofthewarbutdistancedfromitsreach.Thenherfather,alegalU.S.residentfornearlytwodecades,issuddenlyarrestedonsuspicionofbeingaNazisympathizer.ThefamilyissenttoaninternmentcampinTexas,where,behindthearmedguardsandbarbedwire,Elisefeelsstrippedofeverythingbelovedandfamiliar,includingherownidentity. TheonlythingthatmakesthecampbearableismeetingfellowinterneeMarikoInoue,aJapanese-AmericanteenfromLosAngeles,whosefriendshipempowersElisetobelievethelifesheknewbeforethewarwillagainbehers.Togetherinthedesertwilderness,EliseandMarikoholdtightthedreamofbeingyoungAmericanwomenwithafuturebeyondthefences. Elise Sontag is a typical Iowa fourteen-year-old in 1943--aware of the war but distanced from its reach. Then her father, a legal U.S. resident for nearly two decades, is suddenly arrested on suspicion of being a Nazi sympathizer. The family is sent to an internment camp in Texas, where, behind the armed guards and barbed wire, Elise feels stri...