With rich, abundant details of what daily life was like inside a U.S. internment camp during World War II, No Quiet Water is a poignant, touching story of an adolescent boy and his loyal dog that travels hundreds of mile to be with him.

—Alden Hayashi, author of Two Nails, One Love

No Quiet Water

After the U.S. declares war on Japan in 1941, all persons of Japanese descent in the Western U.S. come 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 Miyotas suffer unimaginable insults, witness prejudice and violent protests, are forced to live in squalor, and are 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.

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No Quiet Water

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“A lovingly-told story about a boy and his dog, set within the context of the forced removal and incarceration of Japanese Americans on the West Coast during World War II. Shirley Miller Kamada’s book serves as an introduction for a wide range of readers to this dark chapter of American history. While a work of fiction, it is grounded in the author’s archival research to describe the places many once tried to forget.”

—Barbara Johns, PhD, author of

Kenjori Nomura, American Modernist: An Issei Artist’s Journey