The Ocean in the Closetby Yuko Taniguchi
9-year-old Helen Johnson can't understand why her mother locks Helen and her brother in the closet of their 1975 California home or why her father, recently returned from Vietnam, seems so distant. On the other side of the ocean, Helen's great-uncle Hideo still struggles with the loss of his sister who became a comfort woman to American soldiers after the bombing of Hiroshima destroyed the family silk farm and left the Takagawa family broken and scattered.
When Helen travels to Japan to meet Hideo they start to unravel the circumstances of her mother's adoption from Japan and the role that both World War II and the Vietnam War play in her family's legacy. Helen's journey and her boundless hope begin to bridge the fissures keeping her family apart as she sifts through the complex emotional sediment left to the children and grandchildren of war. taken from: http://www.coffeehousepress.org/
