Japanese Internment Camp Stories for Young People

Following the attack on Pearl Harbor 75 years ago this December 7, President Franklin D. Roosevelt issued Executive Order 9066 with backing from officials at all levels of government. EO 9066 sent between 110,000 and 120,000 Americans of Japanese descent to internment camps, in violation of their constitutional rights (protection against illegal search and seizure, due process and redress of grievances). These books may provide adults a way to open conversations with young people about the experiences of Japanese-Americans living in those camps. The list is roughly divided by adolescent, picture book, and nonfiction formats and alphabetical by title. Aleutian Sparrow is not specifically about Japanese-American Internment, but for further reading about internment in the U.S.