Stealing Home by J Torres and David Namisato

Stealing Home, a graphic novel by J Torres and David Namisato is both a heartbreaking and heartwarming historical fiction about a Japanese child named Sandy Saito. Sandy lives in Vancouver, British Columbia, and is obsessed with baseball. He’s especially proud of the Asahi team, the pride of everyone in the Japanese community. One day, however, everything flips on its end and his life isn’t so great anymore. In fact, it might even be downright miserable. What happened? The bombing of Pearl Harbor. From this day on, Sandy’s life and the lives of all the Japanese in North America will never be the same again.

His friends start to call him names, cut him out of their friend group and even attack him and throw rocks and stones at him. Worst of all, they kick Sandy off the field and he can’t even play baseball anymore. If all this isn’t already bad enough, the government steals their home and all their belongings. They take Sandy’s dad away from him while Sandy, his mom, and his brother are forced to go to an internment camp in the middle of nowhere.

Luckily, Sandy can use his love for baseball to potentially escape the horrors of the camp and turn life into the way it used to be: fun. However, this certainly isn’t without any struggle. His mom gets sick, the food is horrible, and there are crying babies everywhere. Worst of all, his dad is still gone.

I truly love historical fiction graphic novels because of how easy and entertaining they make learning about history. Instead of having to read from a huge book with tiny text and not enough pictures, you’re able to read a dynamic and interesting story filled with stunning drawings that always bring another layer of depth to the story. This story has done a wonderful job of doing this, with the drawings sometimes conveying a different message than the text, or just letting you visualize the events.