The National Book Award for Young People’s Literature: A Virtual Book Club

Traci Chee is a New York Times bestselling author of the YA fantasy trilogy- The Reader, The Speaker, and The Storyteller. In We Are Not Free (HMH Books for Young Readers) Traci Chee offers the collective account of a tight-knit group of young Nisei, second-generation Japanese American citizens, whose lives are irrevocably changed by the mass U.S. incarcerations of World War II. Fourteen teens who have grown up together in Japantown, San Francisco. Fourteen teens who form a community and a family, as interconnected as they are conflicted. Fourteen teens whose lives are turned upside down when over 100,000 people of Japanese ancestry are removed from their homes and forced into desolate incarceration camps. In a world that seems determined to hate them, these young Nisei must rally together as racism and injustice threaten to pull them apart. Kirkus, in a starred review, called it “A compelling and transformative story of a tragic period in American history […] Each voice is powerful, evoking raw emotions of fear, anger, resentment, uncertainty, grief, pride, and love. […] unforgettable.”