Hey, it's NPR's Book of the Day. I'm Andrew Limbong. Today, we're bringing you two extremely

different books, inspired by a similar time in world history. In a bit of fantasy romance novel

inspired by the Japanese occupation of Korea up until the end of World War II. But first,

in the 1940s, the United States government was detaining people

of Japanese descent in camps. Now, when I first learned about these camps in school, they were called

internment camps. In the title of her new book, writer Tracy Slater uses a much more direct name.

The book is called It Together in Manzanar, the true story of a Japanese Jewish family in an American concentration camp.

And in the book, she writes about a real mom who was not Japanese, who made the decision to follow her three-year-old Japanese son into one of these camps.

After the break, Slater tells NPR Sasha Pfeiffer what life was like inside, but also about the

conflicted feelings this mom had after all was said and done.

In the U.S., national security news can feel far away from daily life.

Distant wars, murky conflicts, diplomacy behind closed doors on our new show, sources and

methods. NPR reporters on the ground bring you stories

of real people helping you understand why distant events matter here at home. Listen to sources and

methods on the NPR app or wherever you get your podcasts. Picture this situation. You're a parent

raising a toddler, and one day you're told your child

must be sent to a detention camp without you. That's the real-life decision at the center

of a new book based in the early 1940s. Japan had recently attacked Pearl Harbor.

In response, the U.S. government began rounding up

everyone of Japanese descent on the West Coast. The new book, Together in Manzanar,

the true story of a Japanese Jewish family in an American concentration camp, captures the

hysteria and pain of that era. Author Tracy Slater writes about a mother forced to decide whether to go to a

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