This book left me breathless. I don’t even know how to put into words how beautiful this story was to read. This story, the one of both a granddaughter of an internment camp survivor, and that of the internment camp itself, is a hard one to tell. There’s a story that feels like it’s not yours to give life to and yet, through the brilliant addition of a bit of speculative fiction, Kiku tells the story masterfully. The feeling of “displacement” is real and throughout the book and it’s not gimmicky. The feelings are tangible and real and so familiar to those of us with similar stories to Kiku. I’m genuinely blown away with how raw this story left me feeling, and how beautifully it was told. I cannot recommend it enough.

I both liked and disliked Displacement. I liked it because it was a personal story about the Japanese-American Internment camps. The author told the story of their grandmother in the interment camps as if it were their own. Unfortunately, that also kind of bothered me. If you are going to do a first-person narrative of a fearful, humiliating, traumatizing event like this, it should be reliable. The author/main character wasn’t in the internment camps, her grandmother was. Granted, her grandmother is featured in the story, her story is presented at the end of the book, and the emotions felt during internment are believable, which why I’m kind of forgiving it.

Another thing I didn’t appreciate was the magical realism. The Japanese Interment was such a heavy thing that no one talked about it for a long time, not even when it was happening. To time travel into the camps like it was nothing, just a visit, felt like an insult in a way. The reader felt removed from the narrative, which is the exact opposite reaction the author intended as can be seen in the phrase “not again”. Also, the storyline went off track when the author used time travel to follow the mom forward in time. All in all, the magical element the author used wasn’t used properly and ruined Displacement a lot for me.

I liked the concept of this graphic novel: a story of Japanese-American internment and how it applies to today. However, I did not like how the story didn’t quite feel authentic, the time travel issue wasn’t used well (also no one really explained why it happened), and the story veered off its (perceived) intention. I would recommend this story to young readers only because it is history I think they need to know about. However, it wouldn’t be my favorite.

An incredibly well-told story about a period in American history that is not spoken of often enough (and is very scarily too relevant to today’s world). The art is wonderful, and the plot of this text, though fantastical, in a perfect blend of magic realism and history, pulling the reader into Kiku’s past and investing them entirely in what’s going to happen.

Such a moving story told in a unique way! The author introduces the element of time travel to tell the story of her grandmother, a Japanese American woman who was interred in a camp on US soil during World War II.

Thank you NetGalley for the ARC of Displacement by KIku Hughes. This graphic novel about the Japanese internment camps is a story young people need to hear. The fact that this story is told through a graphic novel should make it appealing to middle grade students. This historical fiction story is told through the eyes of a teenager who goes back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in Japanese internment camps. The graphics are very good in this novel and should help teenager's understand the story.

Thank you to #NetGalley and First Second Books for allowing me the opportunity to read a digital ARC of the middle grades graphic novel Displacement by Kiku Hughes. This book is currently set to be released on August 18, 2020. All opinions are my own.

Kiku is on vacation with her mother in San Francisco when she is pulled back in time. She finds herself displaced in the 1940s during the Japanese American internment. The displacements keep happening until Kiku is displaced in time at a Japanese internment camp with her grandmother. Through this displacement, Kiku learns about things she was never taught in history class. When she finally returns to her time, she has a new outlook on life and the treatment of others and is committed to helping protect the civil liberties of others.

This was a powerful graphic novel. It provides the reader with information and experiences of Japanese families in internment camps and juxtaposes them against today's current political climate. The novel encourages themes of resistance and helping protect civil liberties and draws parallels between the Japanese internment camps of WWII and today's immigration laws, immigrant detention camps, and the building of a border wall. The story is powerful and moving and told in a way that is accessible to middle grade readers. It also encourages them to learn more about the internment camps, so we don't repeat this behavior in the future. This would be great or students interested in history and those who have read George Takei's They Called Us Enemy.

Displacement is a beautiful graphic novel that jumps time between the present and the narrator's family history. This weaves the tail of how history should not repeat itself under current politics regarding immigration and treatment of what America deems the "Other" and the treatment of Issei and Nisei during Japanese incarceration.

I enjoyed the development of the narrator's feelings as she experienced history through a lens similar to her grandmother's, and the relationship between mom and daughter. The illustrations are beautiful and display appropriate tones for the theme. As a middle school teacher with a unit on WWII and Japanese incarceration, there are great ties to be made between this visual text and analysis of the time period. Thank you, #NetGalley, for the opportunity to read the ARC.

Definitely inspired by Kindred (was glad to see the author noted that in the end), but felt fresh. Really nice art and a moving story.

I absolutely loved this graphic novel by Kiku Hughes!

I received an ARC of this from NetGalley and First Second Books in exchange for an honest review. This heartfelt and engaging graphic novel follows the story of young Kiku as she is transported back in time to when her grandmother Ernestina was a teenager in a Japanese internment camp during WWII. Kiku documents what she is seeing and experiencing during her “displacement” to another era. She never interacts with her grandmother, but she fills the gaps in her knowledge from not knowing about that time in her grandmother’s life or really knowing her grandmother at all. Kiku makes friends along the way with other teens and bold, smart older women and sees what life was like for young people and families in the camps during that time.

The art and use of a muted color scheme was beautiful and helped to cultivate the whimsical yet melancholy mood of the story. Kiku’s romantic connection with May was sweet and reflected some of the small ways that people could find joy and levity amidst their circumstance.

Kiku’s story shows how her white passing experience from being half-Japanese combined with not knowing the Japanese language or much about her grandmother’s life have together created a fragmented and disjointed connection to her Japanese heritage. The story ends with Kiku talking honestly with her mother about these feelings (once she returns to modern time), and they journey together into connecting with Ernestina through memories and tokens from the past. Kiku's mother also teaches her about the origins of the "model minority" mindset born in the aftermath of the camps and the role it played in anti-Black racism. The story ends with a connection between resistance to the camps then to resistance to the present day detainment camps at the border via Kiku and her mom getting involved in activism together. I think this book will resonate with young people who have a mixed identity and/or don’t have direct connections to older relatives from marginalized and non-white communities. Highly highly recommend once this comes out later this year!

I received an arc of this title from NetGalley for an honest review. I enjoyed Displacement by Kiku Hughes, a graphic novel about when Americans with Japanese heritage who are rounded up in 1942 and taken to camps due to Pearl Harbor. While this was a hard read I liked how the author tied it to today's politics and hopes that history won't repeat itself.

A blend of memoir and science fiction, Displacement is an #ownvoices graphic novel about a young half-Japanese girl who travels back in time to witness her grandmother's experiences in the American incarceration camps of WWII. Inspired by Octavia Butler's Kindred, Kiku Hughes re-imagines her own family's history and explores the lasting effects of oppression on future generations.

Kiku's character refers to her involuntary time traveling as "displacement." The story is less about the actual time traveling and more about Kiku learning about her heritage and identity. Time travel is ingeniously used as a narrative device to approach the collective memory of racial trauma. The prejudice and racism towards people of Japanese descent during WWII is pointedly likened to the modern-day racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia towards immigrants, especially those who are Latinx and Muslim.

I really loved this comic. The story is well-written and the plot is easy to follow along with. The artwork is clear and pleasant, and the somewhat muted color palette is soothing. Hughes includes family photographs in the back matter, plus resources for further research of the topics presented in the book. Overall, a very moving and informative story about the dark events of our past and our present.

I received an ARC of this YA graphic novel through NetGalley from First Second. Kiku and her mother visit San Francisco to see her grandmothers childhood home before her grandmother went to a Japanese Interment Camp during WWII. While walking around, Kiku is literally displaced and begins walking through the past, living through Japanese Internment and seeing her grandmother at a distance. Kiku realizes how little she knows about her grandmother, her own culture, language and American history. The author uses an interesting premise of time travel/displacement to present facts from her own family history while educating the reader about this aspect of American history. I appreciate the tie-ins to our current political climate and how easy it is for people and government to make the same mistakes again. I also related to how easy it is to loose family history as older generations aren’t around to share the their personal stories - we have to become proactive to retain those memories. I’m glad I read this.

Based on the author’s real life family history, Displacement by Kiku Hughes is a graphic novel about a girl who finds herself sliding through time back to San Francisco during World War II and the neighborhood where her grandmother grew up. She names these events displacements, in an effort to understand what is happening to her. They lengthen in time until she finds herself being forced to move along with her neighbors into a Japanese internment camp, first at Tanforan and then at Topaz in Utah. Throughout the many months that she spends back in time, she winds up living close to her grandmother and her family, but doesn’t interact with them.

This is just one of the interesting decisions that the author makes in telling this story and I respect it. Kiku’s vantage point allows her to observe some aspects of her family’s story but not everything. She overhears an argument coming from her grandmother’s apartment but can’t understand it because it is in Japanese. We often just get the bird’s eye view of another person’s life. Another interesting decision is adding the time travel displacements in the first place. This allows modern girl Kiku to reflect not only on her family’s story but also about our own current political climate.

This is a great addition to the literature about Japanese internment but also highlights the fact that defiance and resistance are part of this history as well. Kiku has to sign the loyalty questionnaire and also has a friend who is moved to Tule Lake.

Such an impactful and powerful read! With a hint of magical realism, this story inflicts so much reality onto the reader. The title plays on not only the main character being displaced from her own time, but Japanese Americans being "displaced" from their way of life. Due to the success of "They Called Us Enemy" we are going to see more stories and historical accounts of the Japanese Internment camps and I'm so glad about that. In school, you learn very little about this tragic part of US history and we need more books that reveals the history of persecution and resistance that occurred during this time. I also loved how this portrays a teenager trying to discover the truth for herself and learn more about her family legacy. This could inspire younger readers to do the same.

Part memoir, part history, and part imagination, this graphic novel is a timely glimpse into the lives in the internment camp that her grandmother experienced.
Kiku never really knew much about grandmother, who passed when her mother was in college. In a trip to the West Coast, her mother wants to search for places her mother had lived. During this search Kiku is bored, until a gust of dusty wind transports her back in time to the same same internment camp where her Ernestine, her grandmother was held.
Told in parts, this graphic novel has so much substance and highlights the importance of memories, so we don’t repeat the mistakes of our past.

A time-traveling teen learns about Japanese internment camps during World War 2 and how it effected their family history. It is a nice introduction for people to learn about this dark chapter in US history and also how our current political climate has history repeating itself.

It would be great to use parts of it in a classroom as part of a larger Citizenship unit, but because it does have an underlying (and understandably) political slant and quotes from Trump, I'd use with caution in the classroom since teachers are contractually obligated to remain politically neutral (though *casually* recommending a book that a child *might* want to explore on their own time...).

Wow this was an absolutely brilliant and beautiful graphic novel. It divulges into parts of history and interment camps that not everyone may know about. It is such an important look at history and maybe we could learn something from it today. So many similar things are still happening and their is such a stigma of racial prejudice still here in the U.S. A great book for any age and a great addition to any graphic novel collection.

Thank you to NetGalley for this ARC!

Absolutely brilliant and well done graphic novel that tells of the experience of the MC's Grandmother in an Japanese internment camp. It's a history many try to hid and forget but lives on in the stories we share and pass down.

I loved this time traveling graphic novel so much. This is the book we need to stand up to racial injustice and put a spotlight on the fact that it's not over. Internment camps, racial persecution, ignorance and intolerance are still a part of our lives--not just in the past. Thank you Netgalley for this ARC. All opinions are my own.

I recieved a free copy from netgalley in exchange for an honest review. As a history and political science major I know more about Japanese interment camps than most Americans. But even so this simple book creates a connection to part of american history that is largely forgotten or ignored. I could definitely see using this as an introduction in a elementary or even a middle school history class.