New York Times bestselling author of The Reader series, Traci Chee, is back with a historical YA that hits close to home, The Nerd Daily can exclusively announce.
We are honoured to be revealing the cover for We Are Not Free, along with the first chapter of this exciting June 2020 release! This incredibly timely and moving historical young adult novel draws inspiration from Traci’s family history during WWII and their experience in the Japanese incarceration camps in the United States.
Fifteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco.
Fifteen teens who form a community and a family as interconnected as they are conflicted.
Fifteen teens whose lives are irrevocably changed when the mass incarceration of over 100,000 Japanese and Japanese Americans shakes their community and their country.
In a world that seems determined to hate, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart.
Cover Photo-Illustration © 2020 by David Field / Caterpillar Media
Cover Design by Jessica Handelman
Traci talks about the inspiration for her new novel:
“Although We Are Not Free is a work of historical fiction, it is also a deeply personal story for me. Like my characters, my grandparents were Nisei teenagers living in California when the federal government ordered that they and more than 100,000 other people of Japanese ancestry be removed from the west coast.
At the temporary detention center in Tanforan—a former racetrack—my grandmother, her parents, and four siblings were crammed into a hastily white-washed horse stable that still smelled of manure. Later, when my grandfather’s family was forced to relocate, this time to Topaz, Utah, he should have been a senior at George Washington High School in San Francisco—instead, he had to complete his education in the dusty, unfinished barracks of Topaz High.
It wasn’t until 1997, over fifty years later, that he was awarded an honorary diploma from the San Francisco Unified School District for the education he would have completed there if not for the incarceration.
During the course of my research, I had the immense privilege of interviewing a number of my family members about their time in the incarceration camps, and now I am so honored to share a few glimpses of their experiences—and an integral piece of American history—through this work of fiction.”
We Are Not Free publishes on June 9th 2020, so be sure to add this one to your Goodreads! You can pre-order it from Amazon and IndieBound. In the meantime, you can read the first chapter below!
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Author Photo Credit: Topher Simon
I managed to get and Advanced Readers copy. When I say I can’t put it down, I mean I devoured every word, every sentence. When I was doing schoolwork or chores, I was thinking about what had happened in the most recent chapter, what I thought would happen next. I loved the variety in the characters and the way the multiple points of view opened your mind’s eye. I book hasn’t made me cry in a long time but this one had me sobbing.