• Age: 8 to 12
• Grade: 3 to 7

The harsh conditions of an internment camp become a reality for a young Japanese-Canadian girl.

It is 1941 and Mary Kobayashi, a Canadian-born Japanese girl enjoys her life in Vancouver. She likes school, she likes her friends, and she yearns above all else to own a bicycle. Although WWII is raging elsewhere in the world, it hasn't really impacted her life in B.C.

Then on December 7, 1941, Japan bombs Pearl Harbor. . . and everything changes.

Suddenly a war of suspicion and prejudice is waged on the home front and Japanese-Canadians are completely stripped of their rights, their jobs and their homes. Mary is terrified when her family is torn apart and sent to various work camps, while she and her two sisters are sent, alone, to a primitive camp in B.C.'s interior. Here Mary spends the duration of the war, scared and uncertain of how it will all end.

In Torn Apart, author Susan Aihoshi draws from the experiences of her own family during "The Uprooting" of the Japanese in B.C. during WWII. Through young Mary's eyes, readers experience this regrettable time in Canadian history firsthand.

Susan Aihoshi's profile page

On writing Torn Apart, Susan Aihoshi said, "It was not until this present opportunity arose to write the Dear Canada Japanese Internment story that I have at last been able to achieve one of my lifelong goals - to write a book. It has also been a very gratifying way to explore my own family members' history as Japanese Canadians who lived through a major injustice and went on to thrive in spite of it." Susan is a third-generation Japanese Canadian. She currently works as a writer and editor in Toronto, Ontario.

Praise for Dear Canada: Torn Apart

"Aihoshi does a masterful job of piecing [the diary entries] all together into a tapestry of feelings and experience that reflect those of the entire community at that time...For those of us who are the children and grandchildren of Evacuation and Internment survivors, this book deserves our special attention and, hopefully, will be the catalyst for a younger generation to be empowered by better knowing who they are and where they come from." -Norm Masaji Ibuki, National Association of Japanese Canadians

"I found it really interesting, even though it was sad. It seemed more real than fiction...It also has a map, and some old pictures that help you see what the camps were like, and a glossary of some of the Japanese words that Mary uses - that was helpful...I would definitely recommend it." -The National Post (review by Maia and Diana, age 9)

"Though the outlines of the story may seem sadly familiar, they are chilling when revisited in the diary of 12-year-old Mary Kobayashi." -The Montreal Gazette

"An important story...this reader was moved to fury, and tears." -CM Magazine