Under the Broken Sky
Natsu lives with her family in Manchuria in the 1940s. Her mother died when her sister Asa was born, but life is good with her loving father, little sister, a horse, goats, and hens. Natsu’s parents were encouraged to settle in Manchuria, near the border with Russia, when Japan took the area away from China in 1931. As Japan starts losing World War II, the village men are conscripted. Before Natsu’s father leaves, he admits that he may not return. He makes her promise to take care of Asa; she’s the only one who could get them to Japan. When Japan loses the war, the Japanese of Manchuria are chased from their homes. Many are killed. Natsu, Asa, and their “auntie” flee to the city of Harbin, where they live as impoverished refugees, waiting for a way to sail to Japan.
Under the Broken Sky is written in poignant verse. Nagai is an award-winning poet, which is obvious from her ability to craft sentences and create scenes. Unfortunately, the pacing of the story is too slow. One tragic event slowly follows another tragic event which slowly follows another, on and on. The “win” that Natsu achieves is not a real victory—it might have been better if she’d lost. As a genre, novels-in-verse focus on powerfully emotional topics, and although this story is tragic, it misses the gut-wrenching punch found in Out of the Dust and Crossover, and as a story of refugees, it doesn’t have the excitement of Refugee or the reader-character bond of Inside Out and Back Again. Beautifully written, it may be the only book about the Japanese in Manchuria for middle-grade readers ages 10 to 14.
