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Journey to Topaz
Yoshiko Uchida, Donald Carrick (Illustrator)
3.88
1,651 ratings233 reviews
Like any 11-year-old, Yuki Sakane is looking forward to Christmas when her peaceful world is suddenly shattered by the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Uprooted from her home and shipped with thousands of West Coast Japanese Americans to a desert concentration camp called Topaz, Yuki and her family face new hardships daily.
GenresHistorical FictionMiddle GradeYoung AdultFictionWorld War IIWarAmerican History
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168 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1971
Literary awards
Vermont Golden Dome Book Award Nominee (1973)
Original title
Journey To Topaz: A Story Of The Japanese-American Evacuation
Setting
Topaz Relocation Camp, Utah (United States, 1941), Utah (United States)
This edition
Format
168 pages, Paperback
Published
October 1, 2015 by Heyday
ISBN
9781890771911 (ISBN10: 1890771910)
ASIN
1890771910
Language
English
More editions
Kindle EditionHeyday2022
PaperbackCreative Arts Book Co1988
HardcoverEncore Editions1971
HardcoverScribners1971
Library BindingTurtleback Books2004
Library BindingBt Bound1986
PaperbackHeyday2022
PaperbackCreative Arts Book1985
PaperbackCreative Arts Book Company
PaperbackDemco Media1986
Unknown BindingYamaguchi Shoten1984
PaperbackD C Heath & Co
Unknown BindingHEYDAY BOOKS2005
Unknown BindingCreative Arts Book Company, Berkeley
HardcoverEncore Editions
HardcoverEncore Editions
Library Binding
PaperbackHeyday1781
PaperbackHeyday2004
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1686 people want to read
About the author
Yoshiko Uchida51 books94 followers
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Yoshiko, born on November 24, 1921, was the second daughter of Japanese immigrant parents Takashi and Iku. Her father worked as a businessman for Mitsui and Company in San Francisco, and Iku wrote poetry, passing along her love of literature to her girls. Though the Great Depression raged, the Uchida family enjoyed comforts because of Takashi's well-paying job and their own frugality. Yoshiko loved to write, and her stories played out on pieces of brown wrapping paper. She also kept a journal to record her thoughts and events.
Enveloped in love and tradition at home, Yoshiko weathered the prejudice she sometimes faced. Many white students at University High School in Oakland didn't invite her to their parties and wouldn't socialize with her, deeming her a foreigner. Even while attending the University of California at Berkley, Yoshiko often faced the same dilemma of being ostracized. She found friendships with other Japanese American students and was preparing to graduate when Pearl Harbor was bombed, changing her life.
The United States government rounded up 120,000 people of Japanese descent and put them into camps. The Uchida family first resided in a horse stall at a racetrack in California, surrounded by barbed wire and armed guards. Though difficult to endure, the next move was worse. Almost 8,000 Japanese were sent to a relocation concentration camp called Topaz in the Utah desert. The detainees suffered from violent dust storms, scorpions, snakes, and exceedingly poor living conditions. Yoshiko taught second grade children there until she received a fellowship from Smith College to earn a master's degree in education.
Yoshiko and her sister both left the camp in May of 1943, with their parents gaining release later that year. Teaching for several years in a Quaker school outside of Philadelphia, Yoshiko decided to quit teaching and find work that allowed more time for writing. She moved to New York City and began as a secretary, penning stories in the evenings. Asked to contribute to a book about Japanese folk tales, Yoshiko discovered that though the book didn't come to be, with time she could create a full collection of folk tales. Writing a few pieces for adults, Yoshiko realized she was better suited for children's books.
A Ford Foundation fellowship sent her to Japan to research the culture and their stories. Spending two years, Yoshiko found her time to be healing as she learned about her own ancestry. The pain of the concentration camps lessened, and she began writing about the experiences in fictional books such as Journey to Topaz and Journey Home. Her career as an author soared as people regarded her as a pioneer in Japanese American children's literature. The author of almost forty works, including Japanese folk tales and stories of Japanese American children making their way in the world, Yoshiko traveled extensively, lectured, and wrote. After suffering from a stroke, Yoshiko passed away on June 25, 1992, in Berkeley, California.
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3.88
1,651 ratings233 reviews
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 233 reviews
Julie G
1,005 reviews3,891 followers
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January 8, 2021
“There is so little here to comfort the eye or the heart, and people grow quarrelsome and sullen when they are unhappy.”
In the spring of 1942, following the Japanese bombing of Pearl Harbor, the U.S. Government mandated the evacuation of some 120,000 Japanese Americans from the West coast of the country.
Families lost their homes and businesses and were swept away to live in these military camps anywhere from months to years, depending upon the circumstances of their internment.
I knew very little about this chapter in American history until my daughters and I set out to have more Asian-American reads under our belts. Much of this was happenstance, to be honest.
This particular selection is a story centered around a family called the Sakanes who are evacuated from their lovely home in Berkeley, California and taken to the internment camp in Topaz, Utah. Journey to Topaz was published in 1971 by Japanese-American author, Yoshiko Uchida and Ms. Uchida writes in her Prologue:
Although the characters are fictional, the events are based on actual fact, and most of what happened to the Sakane family also happened to my own.
The narrative here is excellent, and Ms. Uchida did an effective job of teaching both the young readers at my house and their mother what daily life was like at this camp. (As far as we could tell, worse than how life was at the Manzanar internment camp in California, according to Paper Wishes, and better than life for the evacuated Aleuts, according to Aleutian Sparrow).
My girls and I cringed at some of the cultural differences in this patriarchal-based Asian-American family in the early 1940s. Little sister Yuki puckers her lips in the mirror and wonders if her older brother will ever want to date her, instead of the girl he likes at school, and when the father is ushered away by the authorities, he asks his son to be a “substitute” for him, with his wife.
My daughters, who have a much older brother like Yuki, got a little green during the “mirror scene” and my 12-year-old grimaced in disgust and said, “Eww. You don't date your brother, dude!” (Damn straight, daughter, unless you're a character in a John Irving novel).
This weird quirk aside, we all found this to be an interesting and occasionally upsetting read, but nothing a preteen can't handle.
It was good for us to be reminded, especially right now, that the human spirit is resilient, and “When you do what you know is right, you find a dignity in yourself that makes you a happy person.”
70-from-the-1970s girl-power he-ain-t-heavy-he-s-my-brother
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Shannon
43 reviews
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June 14, 2013
My son was reading this as an assignment in his 5th grade class. The description caught my attention since I know very little about Japanese-Americans being sent to internment camps, and I wanted to be more informed so I could discuss the book with my son. We both enjoyed the book and had some great discussions about it. We felt connected to the characters and felt compassion and sympathy for what they were experiencing. There were sad parts, but they were not too overwhelming or intense for my son (who will not sleep if anything is too scary or worrisome). An excellent book!
young-adult
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Lora
421 reviews
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April 19, 2017
I wish there were more books about this disaster of American policy. Yuki and her family and friends were brave and kind. I wondered what happened next...
3 likes
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Alison S
15 reviews5 followers
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March 23, 2018
This book is amazing. A must read!
3 likes
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Christopher Green
112 reviews2 followers
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September 19, 2017
I read this book looking for books presenting a variety of perspectives on World War II to pitch to my students who will be reading The Book Thief. To my knowledge, there aren't a lot of books that deal with the evacuation of Japanese Americans from the West Coast, so I was excited to see what Journey to Topaz had to offer.
This book does a pretty good job of laying out basic factual information about what the average Japanese American living in California might have experienced at the outbreak of WWII. If nothing else, readers will go away knowing the basic facts. This book does not do a great job of giving the reader much to invest in beyond whatever curiosity drove him or her to pick the book up in the first place. There's not much character depth and even the most compelling or unjust events aren't conveyed in a way that arouses much emotion. Presenting the story through the eyes of a girl was a step up from a dry recitation of the facts, but only a small step.
arguably-young-adult classroom-collection kiddies
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Nyah Prince
121 reviews
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June 9, 2021
I heard that we were going to be reading this book for learning about the Japanese Internment Camps, part of our WWll study. And I thought that this just might be a boring book with history included but when I read this book. It was more than I thought. It was so good and I wish there was a Journey To Topaz 2. I was truly an awesome and amazing book. And I learned a great deal of knowledge delivered in such a great way.
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Hannah
796 reviews20 followers
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March 19, 2024
Great read aloud for our American history! Introduced hard topics in an approachable way for elementary/middle kids that is uncomfortable but not overly depressing or agenda full. Recommend!
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Sue
2,322 reviews35 followers
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December 16, 2023
This is a fictional account of a family evacuated from Berkeley to Tanforan, then Topaz in Utah. It's based on the author's life & is told in a touching manner that puts the reader in the steps of the young girl, Yuki, who is experiencing these frightening & unexplainable events. As she is torn from her home & faced with leaving her home, plus having her father interned in an enemy alien camp in Montana, she looks for hope & tiny bits of happiness. It's a heartbreaking story & yet the author manages to make it life-affirming. I loved it.
wwii young-adult
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Lauren Stoolfire
4,737 reviews295 followers
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May 22, 2018
I haven't read all that much fiction where the relocation and internment of Japanese Americans during WWII takes center stage, but this children's/ middle grade title is a good place to start as it is the fictionalized account of a woman who experienced it first hand when she was young. If this isn't required reading for 5th or 6th graders it really should be.
childrens historical-fiction middle-grade
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Maddox W.
3 reviews
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ReadNovember 23, 2019
This book is all about a chines family living in the US in during WWI. They were living a normal day and the FBI comes to their door and takes their father away right after the attack of Perl Harbor. They send them all to camps down in the east. They live in hoarded conditions and little space. They meet wonderful classmates and people but unfortunately they have to move camps after reviving a letter from father saying he was OK they got their hopes up and now you will have to read to see what happens next. Hope this was helpful and it's a wonderful story for all ages.
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 233 reviews
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From the United States
Dukes
5.0 out of 5 stars Book
Reviewed in the United States on November 17, 2025
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Well worth spending
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reynold sodini
5.0 out of 5 stars Great novel showing what the Japanese-Americans had to deal with the hatred .
Reviewed in the United States on September 28, 2025
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
Our rights as citizens could easily be set aside by those who do not believe in our rights. We are witnessing it today.
2 people found this helpful
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James Youn
5.0 out of 5 stars Review
Reviewed in the United States on May 7, 2025
Format: KindleVerified Purchase
This book was amazing. It kept me interested and it described in great detail.I would definitely read this book again
One person found this helpful
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Elizabeth
5.0 out of 5 stars ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS I’VE EVER READ…
Reviewed in the United States on March 11, 2024
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
I bought this for a book club and it was AMAZING!!! Great shipping, but most of all cool cover design for the 50th Anniversary Edition.
( NO SPOILERS )
It is an amazing book about the
Japanese Internment Camps. It doesn’t make it seem like any average Japanese person.
(quoting from the book)
It shows it from the perspective of a child and it is based off of an actual experience from the author.
3 people found this helpful
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BronkBuilt
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United States on November 11, 2015
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I like it.
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Pinkcat888
5.0 out of 5 stars One of my daughter’s favorite books
Reviewed in the United States on April 5, 2023
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
My daughter read this book when she was in 6th grade and she loved it. It was the focus of a book discussion and she did not own an actual copy at the time. When she recently told me how much she liked the book, I bought it for her so she would always have her own personal copy even though she is going to a university in the fall of 2023.
5 people found this helpful
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Tiffany Wasson
5.0 out of 5 stars Book for School
Reviewed in the United States on December 14, 2023
Format: PaperbackVerified Purchase
My kid had to read this book for school and he really enjoyed it.
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KOS
5.0 out of 5 stars Quick read, but the book is written by someone who was actually imprisoned at Topaz.
Reviewed in the United States on March 16, 2023
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The book arrived in like new condition.
Quick read, but the book is considered a classic of Japanese Internment literature.
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BG
5.0 out of 5 stars Sadly beautiful
Reviewed in the United States on July 3, 2017
Verified Purchase
We are heartbroken reading this book. I want to give it 2 stars just because I am so upset over what happened. But that doesn't make sense! The author does a fabulous job drawing us into the story and painting the picture we need but don't want to see. I am still trying to figure out why I never heard of this in school. Absolutely tragic. Beautifully written and illustrated.
6 people found this helpful
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elizabeth nolan
5.0 out of 5 stars Historical fiction at its best
Reviewed in the United States on June 1, 2016
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Journey to topaz is about yuki , a young girl, forced to leave the only home she's ever known (Berkeley) to go to live in an internment camp during world war two. The camps are worse than she could ever imagine, and she has to give up so many things. Journey to topaz is based on real experiences and is a heartbreaking look into America's past
One person found this helpful
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==
From the United States
Cool Breeze
5.0 out of 5 stars A story of injustice and hope.
Reviewed in the United States on May 15, 2019
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My granddaughter was enthralled with this book. The true story of the internment of American Citizens of Japanese descent shocked and angered her. Yet the story was so heartfelt and gentle. Excellent book adults and children will learn and enjoy it.
3 people found this helpful
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Frances M. Chadwick
5.0 out of 5 stars Engage students and get them analyzing!
Reviewed in the United States on May 28, 2014
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
Wonderful story and very appealing to young students (upper elementary, middle school). Perfect book to use for interdisciplinary teaching. Students learn history and civics through high quality literature. This gives them a reason to research, take the government to court -and use writing standards to argue a position. Talk about meeting Common Core Standards in an authentic and thought provoking way!
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VANESSA TORRES
5.0 out of 5 stars This book should be read w/ respect to anyone whose been caught in the cross fires of life!
Reviewed in the United States on July 6, 2019
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very Good book to read! It helps you appreciate life. It takes you thru a journey, a harsh journey on how ppls lives can be interrupted from one moment to another, it’s rough but it’s an I opener.
One person found this helpful
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john marsh
5.0 out of 5 stars heartbreaking
Reviewed in the United States on January 31, 2021
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excellent read aloud by a bay area author, gave this copy to a fourth grader, have bought several copies
One person found this helpful
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Duke
5.0 out of 5 stars I loved this book!
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2013
Format: HardcoverVerified Purchase
This was a reading assignment in my 5th grade Language Arts class. The reason I loved ths book is because it made me feel like I was in Yuki's body, and I felt I was also the narrator. The story was very interesting.
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Sonja
5.0 out of 5 stars How the Japanese evacuation affected an American Japanese Family.
Reviewed in the United States on December 11, 2019
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Love this book! A very heartfelt recall of a young girl’s experiencing
the Japanese evacuation during WW 2.
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Sodamama
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2021
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Amazing book that was read aloud.
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Caroyus
5.0 out of 5 stars Japanese-Americans in the WW II.
Reviewed in the United States on May 4, 2018
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Great historical fiction book. I recommend it to learn about American Historiy during WWII from a different perspective.
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Nora
5.0 out of 5 stars Great!
Reviewed in the United States on October 29, 2017
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It was a nice book to read. A great book for my book report.
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harleygirl3000
5.0 out of 5 stars She said she never expected it to be so good.
Reviewed in the United States on October 30, 2014
Verified Purchase
Required reading for my 6th grade daughter. Seemed very impactful. She said she never expected it to be so good.
One person found this helpful
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