Pearl | Review

Pearl by Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie
Scholastic Graphix, August 2024, $24.99
Grades 5 and up

May is Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, and though Pearl by Sherri L. Smith and Christine Norrie won’t be released until the summer, why not celebrate its upcoming release with a review?

13-year-old Amy is a Nisei, born in the U.S. to parents from Japan, and lives with herfamily in Hawaii. It’s 1941, and though the world is at war, Amy lives an idyllic life. She has friends and a rich sense of family. But when her great-grandmother falls ill in Japan, her parents can’t travel back to help, so instead, they send Amy to Hiroshima to care for her.

Shortly before Amy’s scheduled departure back to the U.S., her life is turned upside down when the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor. Amy cannot return to her home in Hawaii, but in Japan, she is neither Japanese nor American. She does not belong. She is drafted into service to monitor radio reports and to translate them from English to Japanese. And then the Americans drop the atom bomb.

I am accustomed to Scholastic Graphix to publishing more young middle grade titles. While any middle school student could follow it, this visually told story with a sparsity of words and melancholic tone will appeal to the more serious-minded reader. Young readers who aren’t familiar with World War II history will miss many of the clues, especially those left in the illustrations. As soon as I knew Amy was returning to Japan, I was able to infer that she would get stuck and when I realized her family was from Hiroshima, well, I knew what was coming next.

That said, this is a beautifully told story that has many visual details. The simple and elegant text compliment the illustrations, which are in hues of blue. (I was reading an advanced reading copy; the final artwork will be in full color, but I believe it will be a limited color palette.) I really wanted more from the story. I wanted a little more about Amy and her great-grandmother. I wanted more details about her time in translation services. Those parts felt quick and skimmed over.

Nonetheless, this is a truly beautiful story, artfully told, and it offers much fodder for conversation. Hopefully adult readers will pick this up and encourage young readers, who may bypass it on the shelf, to pick it up and read it as well.

Filed under: Graphic Novels, Reviews