No-No boy by John Okada

No No boy
By John Okada
276 Pages
Review by Nathan Grade 6
Marshall Middle School, Washington.

What happens when you say no to a whole country? Would you say no to a country and say yes to yours? This book was great for me; it was a tale of a U.S. Citizen who was Japanese but born in America who spent two years in jail for refusing to join the U.S. army and swearing off allegiance to the emperor of Japan. He then sets to walk on the streets of Seattle, Washington for the first time in two years and he thinks everything’s going to be all right. He is scared when people he used to know as friends treat of him like dirt. Racism and hate crimes are on the streets and Ichiro knows he made the wrong choice to saying no.

This is book is great for the sense for how life was for those who chose to say no to the judge. I didn’t think that things like this happened I thought that the Japanese were just sent to camp for a while but I was wrong. This book tells of how our government treated Japanese men terribly and gave them a simple choice Sit in jail or join the army.

I loved this book I learned a lot about how cruel are government can be. I really do recommend this book if you do not have much knowledge of what happened when to the Japanese after they were put in camp. I would recommend this book to people who also don’t know much about U.S. history.