Let's all read about Japanese internment

Getting through Sandra Dallas's Tallgrass for my review for Corridorbuzz.com was a bit of a slog. I kept waiting for this book to take off, but it instead got boggled down in little, smalltown dramas that detracted from the main event: there are Japanese prisoners in a camp located right next to your farm!

I admire Dallas for not sensationalizing this story, though. As a journalist, I can't imagine having such weighty material at hand -- the internment of Japanese-Americans on our own soil after the bombing of Pearl Harbor -- and not delving into those gritty details. Instead, she has created a family portrait that explores how fear and intolerance of the prisoners spreads like a virus through a rural community. That's an angle that makes this a good choice for the Linn County Reads program.

I think I've waited long enough to learn about what really happened in this dark chapter. You're reading it here: I vow to read Lauren Kessler's Stubborn Twig.