"To fall in love is already a gift. But to fall in love in a place like Minidoka, a place built to make people feel like they weren't human—that was miraculous"

Content Area Connections:

Language Arts: Determine theme and explain how it is conveyed through details in the text and illustrations, describe character responses to major events, compare perspectives, and write narratives or reflections using text evidence.
Social Studies: WW2 impacts, Japanese internment, Topaz internment camp in Utah,  cultural differences, comparisons between families, comparing life in the past to life today, understanding other’s perspectives, building empathy 
Social Emotional Learning (SEL): Social awareness (empathy, perspective-taking), relationship skills (care, connection), self-awareness, and resilience in response to adversity.
Art: Analyze how artists use color, line, space, and composition to convey mood and meaning; interpret symbolism and visual storytelling within a historical context.

Primary Source Connection: 

• Photographs from the Topaz Museum in Delta, UT
• Primary Source set from the Library of Congress on Japanese American Internment
• Ansel Adams photographic collection of Japanese-American Internment at Manzanar
• Interactive Map of Manzanar

Other Books: 

• The Children of Topaz
• Seen and Unseen
• My Lost Freedom
• Love Grows Here
• Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind by Cynthia Grady (Pk-6th)
• Baseball Saved Us