The subject of Japanese Internment Camps had long been ignored in fiction and I'm glad it is having its moment. More people need to know how the United States have treated its citizens, especially those citizens considered less desirable, throughout history.

Hughes's interesting take has a child going back in time and witnessing what her grandparents went through while at the camps. I thought the conceit was trite, but for younger readers the book does what it is trying to achieve.

Powerful book. Would pair well with Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment that some schools teach or They Called Us Enemy, which is on the 2022 Lincoln Teen Readers' Choice Award list. Another read-alike would be Fred Korematsu Speaks Up.

I really enjoyed this graphic novel. The art was lovely and matched the tones of the book. I think this was a nice way to present this story. I learned a lot that I did not know about this time in American history. I like that this book tied into the authors own memory and family history. I particularly enjoyed the photos in the back matter of the real life people that inspired some of the characters. This would be a good choice for readers than enjoy historical fiction and realistic fiction graphic novels, including those that enjoyed When Stars are Scattered.

This book is really successful at both teaching about the history of the Japanese internment by the US as well as showing that these issues and traumas are constantly being applied to different groups of people in the US.

This thoughtful graphic novel is a vivid look at main character Kiko's family history in an American-Japanese Internment Camp. The artwork is beautiful and brings the story to life beyond the meaningful text on the page. Would be a great addition to any high school library.

A lovely graphic novel that spans decades through a little bit of magical realism. Would work well as an introduction to WWII internment camps.

Displacement is a brilliant debut graphic novel featuring a 16 year old half-Japanese main character who winds up traveling back through time (or something like it). Kiku Hughes can be doing anything, just living her life, and suddenly she can be swooped along in a mist and find herself some other place and some other time. The first time it happens she sees her grandmother playing violin at a concert or recital in the late 1930s.

She doesn't know much about her grandmother. She knows her grandmother wound up in Topaz, an internment (prison) camp for Japanese Americans. She knows her grandmother died of Leukemia when she was still relatively young, long before Kiku was born.

Kiku's displacements, the times where she winds up out of her own time and place, take her to experience internment for herself. She learns first hand truths that she hadn't learned in school or from her own Japanese-American community. She learns later just how the traumas of internment camps continue on, even generations later, causing her to be disconnected from the culture of her grandparents. She discovers how the aftermath of interment led to the creation of anti-black stereotypes of Japanese as the "model minority". Our history effects us all, whether we know it firsthand, secondhand, or not at all. But when we know our history, we can do our best to be better.

This book reminded me in many ways of The Devil's Arithmetic, a book I read to shreds as a kid. A young woman goes back in time (dream? reality? memory?) and witnesses a traumatic event from history, but specifically from a point of view adjacent to an ancestor. What really rocked me is that both of these stories did indeed take place at the same time. The United States was rounding up and imprisoning Japanese-American residents and citizens at the same time in history that the Nazis were imprisoning and exterminating Jews and other "undesirables." This should have been an obvious parallel, and I clearly knew that both happened at the same time, but this book really hammered it home in a way that I felt in my bones.

And I think one might be tempted to excuse the U.S. policy as not being as bad, not as extreme, based on the necessity of military strategy, etc. And while clearly one country pursued extermination while the other was merely incredibly restrictive, both policies removed justice and liberty and utilized ham-fisted corrupt bigotry instead. It's like the argument that some enslavers were "nice" -- sure, it's better to be fed well, but slaves still weren't free. And while Kiku's story itself does not offer much comparison between the Internment and the Holocaust, it does dive into the parallels between history and the present day, and it does address the deeply disturbing historical trauma that ripples into the future to affect the descendants of those initially affected.

Kiku herself is displaced in time and witnesses her grandmother's journey to an Internment Camp. Living in that time period for about six months, Kiku becomes intimately familiar with camp life, camp dangers, and learns about the resistance within the camp that took place against the unjust imprisonment. At the risk of being too much of a lesson, at the end Kiku discusses her experience with her mother. Their conversation addresses the weight and consequences of memory, the unintended aftereffects of imprisonment on some of these U.S. citizens with Japanese heritage, the myth and danger of the model minority, and the raw tenderness of this family history. Personally, I found this conversation refreshing and a much needed release from the build up of the story itself. It made me wonder why the Holocaust is such a known and written-about story (and has been for many years), and why the history of the Japanese American Internment camps are typically more sanitized and have only recently gotten some much needed attention. Possibly for similar reasons that account for why Hitler is the "bad guy" of WWII, but Joseph Stalin largely flies under the radar.

Thank you to NetGalley for a digital ARC.

Such a beautiful book that spans decades through a little bit of magical realism. Historical fiction/fantasy. WWII internment camps.

This is an interesting and unique addition to the autobiographical fiction genre and graphic novel format- I really enjoyed it (though pacing was not great) and look forward to what the author will bring to us next!

This book was a perfect young adult introduction to the history of the Japanese Internment camps. The framing of a teen girl being sent back in time creates a tension that seems realistic, and helps teens today relate to history.

A stunning graphic novel weaving real history with fiction. The images were emotionally moving, the storyline was fascinating. Recommended for all.

When Kiku goes to San Francisco for a vacation with her mother, she is pulled back in time to her grandmother’s era, the early 1940s. She comes back almost immediately, but it happens again and again, until she seems to be stuck in the time period, as her grandmother and her family and many other Japanese Americans are incarcerated during World War II..... https://blogs.slj.com/goodcomicsforkids/2020/06/04/review-displacement/

While I am not usually one to read graphic novels, I really enjoyed how accessible this graphic novel made a part of history that rarely gets talked about. This was an informative read that I could definitely see being used to teach about Japanese Internment. I would definitely want to continue reading about this subject to get a better idea, as this did seem like a more broad, beginner's understanding of Japanese Internment.

The primary reasons for the rating is just the fact that I felt this story was more plot driven rather than character driven, which made it hard to connect to the main character. This is an important story, especially because Japanese Internment has been buried and downplayed, but I would have enjoyed knowing more about the main character.

Overall, this was a good read, and I would definitely recommend it to anyone who is looking for a good supplemental material!

A classic of middle school class reading, Janet Yolen's "The Devil's Arithmetic" tells a story of the Holocaust by sending a modern child back in time to witness and experience her own family's treatment in a concentration camp, thus bringing history into a modern perspective. "Displacement" is a similar treatment of the Internment of Japanese Americans during WWII—but with a more advanced, updated story and a graphic novel format with beautiful drawings. I hope it's also widely adopted for classroom reading!

An intriguing way to share the too often downplayed history of Japanese interment camps during WWII in the US. Part magical realism or sci fi, part historical bio - this graphic follows the author back in time to experience for herself what happened to her Japanese grandmother and great grandparents during the war. The idea of memories being held by a group of people and having the power to affect generations to come in such a tangible way was fascinating to watch play out on the page.

A beautifully created lesson on the experience of Japanese-Americans in the 1940s. While it leans a little heavily on being educational, I don't think that takes away from the narrative or the characters. A great option for middle school readers looking to learn more about that period of history.

Two of the most acclaimed books of 2019 were They Called Us Enemy by George Takei and Internment by Samira Ahmed. Readers seeking an exceptional read-alike will find one in Displacement by Kiku Hughes. In this debut graphic novel, a Seattle teen named Kiku experiences “displacements” to other places in time. The first time, she is on a trip to San Francisco with her mom, who is exploring her own mother’s former neighborhood in Japantown. Ernestina and her parents, immigrants from Japan, lived there until 1942, when they were relocated to incarceration camps along with 120,000 other people of Japanese descent (“nikkei”). After brief displacements to her grandmother’s violin recital and to a line at a transportation center, Kiku experiences a longer displacement to the camp at the Tanforan Racetrack. There, she’s assigned to a stable next to Ernestina and her parents. Kiku’s roommate, Aiko, guides her through the long lines, mess hall, roll call, and day-to-day life in the camp. After a transfer to the more permanent Topaz camp in Utah, Kiku gets to know firsthand the traumas, divided loyalties, and resistance that will continue to be felt for generations among the nikkei. Kiku Hughes writes in her Author’s Note, “History and memory have tremendous power to heal us and give us the tools we need to know ourselves and navigate the world.” This beautifully rendered story is definitely one of these tools; its readers will learn from and about the experiences of Japanese Americans.

This is an interesting way to view history, through the lens of a family member who lived it. The illustrations are beautiful and draw you into the story. If you like graphic novels that are limited on text, this has a moderate amount of text compared to other historical graphic novels. This graphic novel is important in showing the decidedly undemocratic way that Japanese Americans were treated during WWII. This is a high-interest novel, and tells a story that we need to explore.

In this graphic novel, our narrator, Kiku doesn't know that much about her family history. As she is with her mom one day, she is suddenly displaced in time, back to her grandmother's youth. It goes back and forth in time a few times, until she is transported to a Japanese Internment camp with her grandmother for a much longer period of time. The book is based off the author's real family history. An interesting way to look at the past and present.