To Kill a Lark Bunting?

When I lived in Japan, the junior high school assistant principal asked me to come up to his desk one day. He handed over a small book that had belonged to his grandfather. In it were his grandfather’s notes taken in an English class. But as I read “dig the latrine,” I realized the English class had taken place in a prison camp. Both horrified and fascinated, I read through the rest of the book and carefully returned it to my boss. Hopefully my red face conveyed what my Japanese could not.

Surrounded by Hello Kitty, sushi and Ninja Warrior , it’s easy to forget there was a time when our two countries were enemies. But Sandra Dallas takes us back to that world where "Nip" does not refer to a cheese cracker.

By the third page of Tallgrass, I had to double check the cover to make sure this wasn’t Harper Lee’s long awaited second novel. Dallas’ characters channel the precocious observations and level headed charm of Scout and Atticus. In this case, Rennie (“Squirt”) and her father Loyal Stroud deal with WWII racial tensions surrounding the internment of Japanese-Americans to a camp near their Colorado beet farm.

The Strouds hire some of the camp residents to help out on the farm, and Loyal becomes the unofficial spokesman for the Japanese-are-decent-folks side of town. Hooligan Beaner Jack and his sidekick Danny do more than their share to represent the opposite view. A couple of murders, pregnancies, and telegrams from the front later, all in the town are examining where they stand.

If you like Hisaye Yamamoto and love Harper Lee, you’ll eagerly mow through Tallgrass.