Photo by muratart via Shutterstock

Zachary Whitlock knows sheep. He knows farming and knows what it’s like to have his best friend forced into an internment camp for Japanese Americans. What he does not know much about is goats and traveling by sea on cargo ships, yet he makes a decision to go with a group of volunteers to Japan to help deliver a herd of more than two hundred goats, many of which are pregnant, to survivors of the U.S. bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Goats provide much-needed milk and nutrition, and people living in the bombed ruins are sick and hungry. What he also does not know at the age of seventeen, is what it means to be seasick, how to navigate the personalities of seasoned seamen, and how to keep not only goats but himself alive during a typhoon. A fascinating follow-up to NO QUIET WATER, Shirley Miller Kamada’s well-received novel about the WWII internment era, ZACHARY: A SEAGOING COWBOY is a story full of adventure, human connection, and a young man’s coming of age.

Praise for ZACHARY: A SEAGOING COWBOY

In this sequel to NO QUIET WATER, Shirley Miller Kamada once again gently addresses for young readers the injustices of war. Transporting us this time to Japan, Zachary’s goodwill mission brings him face to face with the emotional and physical realities of the aftermath of war. Hats off to Kamada for keeping this history alive.

–Peggy Reiff Miller, Heifer Project historian and author of THE SEAGOING COWBOYS

After the U.S. declared war on Japan in 1942, all persons of Japanese descent in the Western U.S. came under suspicion. Curfews are imposed, bank accounts frozen, and FBI agents search homes randomly. Despite the fact that two generations of the Miyota family are American citizens, Fumio and his parents and sister Kimiko must pack meager belongings and are transported under military escort to the California desert to be held at Camp Manzanar, leaving their good friends and neighbors the Whitlocks to care for their farm and their dog Flyer. The family suffers unimaginable insults, witnesses prejudice and violent protests is forced to live in squalor and is provided only poor-quality, unfamiliar food, which makes them ill. Later, they are transferred to Idaho’s Camp Minidoka, where Fumio learns what it means to endure and where he discovers a new world of possibility and belonging. Lyrical, visual, and rendered with strict attention to historical accuracy, NO QUIET WATER shines a poignant light on current issues of racism and radical perspectives.