24 November 2019 UNDER THE BROKEN SKY by Mariko Nagai, Henry Holt/Christy Ottaviano Books, October 2019, 304p., ISBN: 978-1-250-15921-2
“Don’t give up
‘Cause I believe there’s a place
There’s a place where we belong”
-- Peter Gabriel (1986)
Natsu, the elder sister, is now twelve. She was six when her mother died while giving birth to Asa:
“Kachan’s Ghost
Some nights like tonight when I can’t sleep,
I count memories of Kachan like people count
sheep. I remember her singing:
she only sang one song about a girl who went
to America wearing red shoes. I remember
when she used to sit really close by the lamp
to sew or mend, she would always lick the end
of the thread, squinting her eyes, before she put it through
the eye of the needle. It made Tochan laugh every time.
Laughing is something that Tochan doesn’t do now.
He must have buried his laughter inside
Kachan’s coffin with her body. I remember Tochan yelling
at me to keep the water boiling so he could melt
the frozen ground. Only then could he bury Kachan.
I remember Goat living in our hut
that long winter so we could give milk to Asa.
And when Goat died, we were all sad
but thanked her for a good dinner that night.
I remember before Asa came, Tochan,
Kachan, and I slept in the shape of the Chinese
characters for river, three parallel lines, with me in the middle.
And when Asa came, I slept where Kachan once slept,
with Asa in the middle. Tochan calls my mom
Kachan--mother--and that’s why I call her this.
I also know that every morning,
Tochan talks to Kachan at the altar,
asking her to look after Asa and me.
That makes me real sad, though I don’t tell
Tochan I hear what he says. Sometimes I know why
Kachan died: because I didn’t love her enough.
If I had loved her enough, she would’ve wanted
to stay with us. And sometimes,
I remember that feeling right after she died,
the feeling of my heart breaking
into pieces like an icicle
shattering against the ground in early spring,
and I never want to feel like that, ever again,
That’s why I don’t like to remember Kachan that much--
All I remember is sadness.”
UNDER THE BROKEN SKY is, above all, a breathtaking fictional survival story. Young readers who enjoy such tales will be undeterred by the setting, even if they are not typically fans of historical fiction.
When Natsu and Asa’s father is conscripted; a neighbor assumes informal guardianship of the sisters just in time for them to all face a desperate, forced migration.
The story is based on what took place in Manchuria at the end of WWII. In the face of the Soviet occupation, the Japanese who were living there sought to escape back to Japan. In the Afterword, the author explains how these people came to be living in Manchuria:
“In 1931, the Japanese government overtook the northern part of China and declared it an independent state called Manchukuo with the last emperor of China--Puyi--as the Kangde Emperor of Manchuria. The government of the newly founded Manchuria created a slogan, ‘Five Races Under One Union,’ and indeed, there were many races living in the country: the Mongolians, Chinese, Koreans, Japanese, Russians (who escaped the Russian Revolution of 1917), and many Europeans…
However, in reality, Manchukuo was a puppet state controlled by the Japanese government.
Japan at that time was suffering from three major issues: overpopulation, bad economy, and lack of natural resources. As a state policy, Japan encouraged its citizens--especially impoverished villages and second and third sons of farmers--to relocate to Manchuria and other occupied territories to provide much needed natural resources for the mainland.
At the time UNDER THE BROKEN SKY takes place, there were two million Japanese living in China and Manchuria. As a result of the conflict, 80,000 of the Manchurian Japanese civilians died.
UNDER THE BROKEN SKY is written as a verse novel, a form that gained a lot of attention when Karen Hesse’s OUT OF THE DUST won the Newbery Medal. In that story, the prose poetry format helped convey that Dust Bowl-era survival story by buffering the horror and highlighting the hope.
UNDER THE BROKEN SKY, another piece of historical fiction written in prose poetry, benefits in the same way. This style helps readers digest the horrors and danger surrounding the sisters as we root for them to survive while so many other characters--including their guardian--are perishing.
As an eldest child who was assigned responsibilities that my siblings never experienced, I relate to the seriousness and tenacity with which Natsu accepts and acts upon her father’s instructions that she somehow safely get herself and Asa back to Japan in his absence.
For those of us who are fans of historical fiction and of verse novels, this is a fully satisfying read.
Richie Partington, MLIS
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