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The Bracelet
". A brief afterword summarizes the general facts and figures of the injustice and the recent restitution, but the story and pictures are about one child, Emi, and her bewilderment and sadness: leaving her empty house, saying goodbye to her best friend, traveling with her mother and older sister to the abandoned Tanforan Racetracks, and trying to make a home in a dark, dirty horse stall. Before Emi leaves Berkeley, her best friend gives her a bracelet. Emi's heartbroken when she loses the gift in the camp, but she comes to realize that she doesn't need a bracelet to remember what she loved and left behind. The bracelet becomes a metaphor for the gift of friendship, the loss, and the enduring bond. Yardley's watercolor paintings show the long lines of people and the barbed wire and also the heartfelt emotion, as when Emi hugs her friend goodbye. Rooted as this story is, it is about the wartime refugee experience everywhere, and kids will identify with the injustice that could suddenly invade an ordinary home right here on their street."
- Hazel Rochman, Booklist

"The haunting immediacy of this moving tale may derive from its roots in Uchida's ( A Jar of Dreams ; The Best Bad Thing ) own childhood experiences. . .Yardley's ( The Red Ball ) hushed, realistic paintings add to the poignancy of Uchida's narrative, and help to underscore the absurdity and injustice suffered by Japanese American families such as Emi's. "
-Publisher's Weekly

"Uchida employs a simple, descriptive style, allowing the child's feelings to give punch to this vignette without becoming sentimental. An afterword gives brief, dignified historical context to the story. Yardley's watercolor illustrations both match and amplify the text at every point, evincing the greatest sensitivity to the depiction of character and to historical accuracy. This deceptively simple picture book will find a ready readership and prove indispensable for introducing this dark episode in American history"
- John Philbrook, School Library Journal

"While somewhat fragmentary in its structure and conclusion, the book (previously published as a short story) is a gentle, honest introduction to the treatment of the Japanese-Americans during the war, and Yardley's delicate pencil-and-watercolor paintings are cleanly drawn and richly colored, with scant pencil lines softly framing the sad scenes. A brief afterword gives a context for the story, allowing parents or librarians to give historical weight to a feeling all kids can share, the pain of missing a friend"
-Roger Sutton, Bulletin for the Center of Children's Books

The Happiest Ending
"Rinko is an attractive heroine bright, active and caught between the divergent cultures of Japan and America. Young readers may be confused by the attitudes expressed and the vocational and educational restrictions imposed upon the Japanese-Americans, for the fact that the story takes place in 1936 is not well integrated into the story. However, this is a good, comforting rite-of-passage story which will be particularly appealing to those who have read the previous two books about Rinko: A Jar of Dreams (1981) and The Best Bad Thing "
- Phyllis Ingram, School Library Journal

"Yoshiko Uchida has a gift for humorous twists and vigorous narrative, and Rinko even at her most pig-headed is immensely likable. The canvas is filled in richly with details of Japanese-American life in the 30's: the furniture, clothes, food, social patterns and manners of a culture balanced between two identities. Over these cheerful daily events falls the shadow of the virulent anti-Japanese prejudices that were to be the foundation for the relocation."
-Patty Campbell, The New York Times Book Review

Two Foolish Cats
"Uchida's telling is as lyrical as that of her longer novels. Zemach, with her marvelous versatility in depicting various cultures, triumphs with these Japanese-style watercolors"
- Publisher's Weekly

Wise Old Woman
"Martin Springett's illustrations are bound to appeal to kids--bold and stylized, they recall traditional Japanese woodcuts and paintings. And Uchida crafts her language with similar precision. The omniscient narration, common in folk and fairy tales, distances us from the characters, but at the same time generates remarkable pathos. Most impressive is the narrative's restraint, as in the early scene in which the farmer carries his mother up the mountain on his back, but is unable to abandon her. A clinical (and cynical) reader might find the story a little too politically calculated--anti-ageist, anti-sexist--but the themes here are undeniably important for all of us, and will have particular relevance to young readers, who may often find their grandparents tedious, their stories and memories boring."
-Kenneth Oppel, Quill & Quire

"Uchida retells an old Japanese folktale with quiet intensity. The cruel, young village lord decrees that people over 70 are useless and must be taken to the mountains to die. A young farmer cannot bear to abandon his mother, so he hides her deep in a cave beneath the kitchen. One day when the village is threatened by a mighty conqueror, the wisdom of the hidden old woman saves the people; then respect and honor are restored for all of the aged. The stylized airbrush-and-ink illustrations in strong shades of purple, brown, and blue have the elegance and fluidity of traditional Japanese prints. The changing perspectives express the reversals of the story as the woman, once a fugitive, gets to take center stage."
- Hazel Rochman, Booklist

"Uchida's brisk storytelling and Springett's surprising, Japanese-woodblock-meets-superhero illustration style edge this Japanese folktale with suspense. "`Anyone over seventy is no longer useful,' the lord declared, `and must be taken into the mountains and left to die.'" Defying this harsh proclamation, a farmer keeps his aged mother in hiding for two years. When a nearby ruler threatens to conquer the village unless the local lord can perform three seemingly impossible tasks, only the farmer's mother succeeds in solving the puzzles. From now on, the lord declares, elders ``will be treated with respect and honor, and will share with us the wisdom of their years.'' What's not for a parent to love here? And the clever solutions to the three tasks, plus the familiar visual cues of good-versus-evil, should gratify the younger generation, too"
- Publisher's Weekly