Under the Blood Red Sun
By Sawyer Shine

Under the Blood Red Sun, by Graham Salisbury, is an amazing book, which I completely recommend to readers who enjoy history, especially World War II, like me. Salisbury is a wonderful author who writes in a detailed and descriptive style. He is very knowledgeable about World War II, Pearl Harbor, and the Japanese Americans who were sent to camps after the bombing of Pearl Harbor. I loved this book, but it had some very sad and disturbing parts because it deals with racism and death.

The main character, Tommy, tells the story. Tommy is a 13-year-old Japanese-American boy. His father and grandfather were sent to internment camps after Pearl Harbor was bombed. It was sad and disturbing when this happened. It was also sad and disturbing to read about how the Japanese-Americans were treated in the camps. For example, in a letter that Tommy’s father writes to Tommy and his mother from the camp, he explains that he cannot write in Japanese. He also tells Tommy that he has to take care of the family while he is in the camp.

Tommy’s family lived on a farm and they kept pigeons. Before his grandfather was sent to a camp, two American soldiers forced Tommy and his grandfather to cut the pigeons’ throats because the soldiers thought they could be used as messenger birds for the Japanese. This part of the book made me feel particularly sad because the birds were just pets.

Even though I think that Salisbury is a smart writer and knows how to explain things, I think he could have explained more about what it was like to live in the camps. The story was more about Tommy’s life outside the camps, which was very hard. But, I imagine that life inside the camp was even more difficult for his father.

I loved this book because it made me feel like I knew what it was like to be Tommy. I imagined what it would be like if my father was taken away. I know that, like Tommy, I would feel miserable and depressed. I felt heartbroken when Tommy had to kill his birds. He was angry at himself and had bad dreams. Even though the story was sad, I still highly recommend this book. I rate this 5 trees please.