The moment I heard of this picture book's subject matter, and the fact that its own publisher wanted to censor and edit it and the author's note in order to downplay its strong antiracism message, I knew I had to read it.
And I'm unfathomably glad I did.'Love in the Library' is based on true events, on the love story of Maggie Tokuda-Hall's maternal grandparents, Tama and George, that is set in a library in Minidoka, a Japanese incarceration camp in WWII. These are prisons invented by Americans, built in faraway deserts, for people who are guilty of the crime of being Japanese.
'Love in the Library' is beautiful. It is touching, it is heartbreaking, it is insightful, it is powerful. And it is all kinds of relevant now. History will always be doomed to repeat itself if we keep on never learning from it. If more people just never read books, for example. Every line in 'Love in the Library' is quotable and deeply important.
It is a human story.
The artwork is wonderful, too. So beautiful; everything about this rich, intelligent, compassionate, affectionate, hopeful book is.
Here are a few of the best quotes out of many I could find:
'It didn't matter who you were, just what you were--and being Japanese American then was treated like a crime.'
'To fall in love is already a gift. But to fall in love in a place like Minidoka, a place built to make people feel like they weren't human--that was miraculous.
That was humans doing what humans do best.'
'"The miracle is in us," Tama wrote in her journal.
"As long as we believe in change, in beauty, in hope."
That miracle is hard to find sometimes. But it is in all of us.'
And from the free and uncensored Author's Note:
'[...] But it is to situate it into the deeply American tradition of racism.
As much as I would hope this would be a story of a distant past, it is not. It's very much the story of America here and now. [...] Hate is not a virus; it is an American tradition.
And yet. And yet so many of us find improbable joy. Our capacious hearts find the love that our nation has denied us. Just as Tama and George did. In the face of all that hate.
Though it is always easier to destroy than it is to build, reminding myself of stories like Tama and George's reminds me to hope. [...]
Because if we can fall in love, if we can find out joy, if we can find that miracle despite all of these truths--
What else can we do?'
Fight censorship. Fight white supremacy.
Keep reading. Keep finding love in libraries.
Final Score: 5/5
P.S. YES! My first five star book of 2024. FINALLY!
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