Its purpose was to house thousands of Japanese Americans. Among them was the Wakatsuki family, who were ordered to leave their fishing business in Long Beach and take with them only the belongings they could carry. Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston, who was seven years old when she arrived at Manzanar in 1942, recalls life in the camp through the eyes of the child she was. First published in 1973, this new edition of the classic memoir of a devastating Japanese American experience includes an inspiring afterword by the authors.

Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls her childhood at a Japanese incarceration camp in this engrossing memoir that has become a staple of curriculum in schools and on campuses across the country. This special 50th-anniversary edition features a new cover, a foreword by New York Times bestselling and acclaimed author Traci Chee, and photographs of life at the camp by Toyo Miyatake. During World War II the incarceration camp called Manzanar was hastily created in the high mountain desert country of California, east of the Sierras. Its purpose? To house thousands of Japanese Americans. In Farewell to Manzanar, Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston recalls life at Manzanar through the eyes of the child she was and the experiences of her family. She relays the mundane and remarkable details of daily life during an extraordinary period of American history: The wartime imprisonment of civilians, most native-born Americans, in their own country, without trial, and by their fellow Americans. She tells of her fear, confusion, and bewilderment, as well as the dignity and resourcefulness of people in oppressive and demeaning circumstances. Jeanne delivers a powerful first-person account that reveals her search for the meaning of Manzanar.

"A remarkably successful re-creation of the Donner Party's ordeal. . . . A moving, persuasive, imaginative account."-- Los Angeles Times

In Snow Mountain Passage, a powerful reimagining of our most dramatic pioneer story, author James Houston tells the tragic tale of the Donner Party through the eyes of James Frazier Reed, one of the leaders, and his daughter Patty. In moving, riveting prose, we follow this ill-fated group determined, at all costs, to make it to the promised land--the California territory.
A proud, headstrong, and devoted husband and father, Reed and his family travel in the "Palace Car," an enormous--and ultimately cumbersome--covered wagon, thrilling to new sights and coping with conflict and constant danger. Yet after a fatal struggle with another driver, Reed is exiled from the party and heads alone over the Sierra Nevada-the final mountain pass. Weeks later, the remaining families arrive at the foothills where they are trapped in the imprisoning snows. Slowly starving and freezing, for months they battle to survive while Reed journeys across northern California, trying desperately to find means and men for a rescue party. An extraordinary tale of pride and redemption, Snow Mountain Passage is a brilliantly and grippingly told story of history and heartbreak.
"Snow Mountain Passage is in a class by itself. ... A dignified, powerful narrative of our shared American destiny."-The Washington Post Book World
"Powerful . . . The novel's clear and beautiful prose brings the realities of the journey alive."-The Denver Post
"A clear-eyed view of humanity's heart of darkness."-The Atlantic Monthly