ALEUTIAN SPARROW
ALSO BY KAREN HESSE
Stowaway
Witness
A Light in the Storm
Just Juice
Out of the Dust
The Music of Dolphins
A Time of Angels
Phoenix Rising
Lavender
Sable
Letters from Rifka
Wish on a Unicorn
FOR YOUNGER READERS
The Stone Lamp
Poppy’s Chair
Margaret K. McElderry Books
New york London Toronto sdney
Margaret K. McElderry Books
An imprint of Simon & Schuster Children’s
Publishing Division
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, New York 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com
This book is a work of fiction. Any references to historical events, real people, or real locales are used fictitiously. Other names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination, and any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
Text copyright © 2003 by Karen Hesse
Illustrations copyright © 2003 by Evon Zerbetz
Map copyright © 2003 by Rodica Prado
All rights reserved, including the right of reproduction in whole or in part in any form.
Book design by Lee Wade
The text for this book is set in Golden Cockerel.
The illustrations for this book are linocuts.
Manufactured in the United States of America
10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data
Hesse, Karen.
Aleutian sparrow / Karen Hesse.—1st ed.
p. cm.
Summary: An Aleutian Islander recounts her suffering during World War II in American internment camps designed to “protect” the population from the invading Japanese.
ISBN 0-689-86189-3
ISBN 13: 978-0-689-86189-5
eISBN 978-1-439-13183-1
1. Aleuts—Juvenile fiction. [1. Aleuts—Fiction. 2. Racially mixed people—Fiction. 3. World War, 1939-1945—Fiction. 4. Concentration camps—Fiction.] I. Title.
PZ7.H4364Al 2003
The following people contributed significantly to my understanding of this complex story: Charlotte Glover, Dave Kiffer, Clifford Homan, Gordon Zerbetz, Fay Schlais, Bob Newell, June Allen, Barbara Svarny-Carlson, and most especially Ray Hudson. Thank you.
In addition I thank Randy Hesse, Kate Hesse, Rachel Hesse, Liza Ketchum, Eileen Christelow, Bob MacLean, Tink MacLean, Wendy Watson, Hilary Goodman, Sharon Creech, and Brenda Bowen for their patient and wise counsel.
Finally I would like to thank the booksellers at Parnassus Books and the enthusiastic students, librarians, and educators I met while visiting Southeast Alaska.
FOR THE UNANGAX, THE PEOPLE OF THE ALEUTIAN AND PRIBILOF ISLANDS
ALEUTIAN SPARROW
—Corey Ford, Where the Sea Breaks Its Back
I noticed a string of strange, bare mountains rising out of the sea along the northern horizon. They resembled heaps of smoking slag; the sun, striking their sides, gave them a greenish cast like verdigris on copper. I asked a fellow passenger what they were. “Illusions,” I thought he said, but now I realize he said they were Aleutians.