HOTEL ON THE CORNER OF BITTER AND SWEET, BY JAMIE FORD
[Fiction] Alternating between the 1940’s and the 1980’s, Henry Lee goes to the Panama Hotel and sees a crowd gathering at the uncovering of possessions that were left behind when the Japanese were sent to the evacuation camps. He had forged a friendship with a young Japanese girl, Keiko, when he was the only Chinese boy at school. Their initial bond was one of being excluded from the other students. He sees a parasol that he is sure belonged to Keiko and this serves as the gateway to all that happened forty years prior. A love story and a family story of different times and differing cultures, this is truly a bittersweet tale.
For more great books, take a look at the new Great Reads from the Reference Librarians list for May 2009.