Abstract:

Tells the real life story of how a librarian from San Diego Public Library became a hero to Japanese American youth in one of America's concentration camps. While others turned their backs, children's librarian Clara Breed spoke out against the injustice of the incarceration. She corresponded with young people who were sent away to camp and became a sounding board for their thoughts, feelings, frustrations and dreams. Set against sweeping visuals of camp life documented by rare home movies, excerpts from some of the 250 letters Miss Breed saved from wartime correspondences with the students present an ardent chronology of the young inmates’ upheaval, incarceration and eventual resettlement through their own words. || Suggested grades: 6-8. || AWARDS: 34th Annual Worldfest Houston, Special Jury Award, Grand Prize nomination, Gold Award, Historical, 2001; Columbus International Film & Video Festival, Honorable Mention, 2000