Yukie's Island - by Yukie Kimura & Kō & do Kimura & Steve Sheinkin (Hardcover)

About the Book

Book Synopsis

A moving picture book autobiography about a family's resilience and path to healing after the devastation of war.

It's 1945, the final year of World War II. Yukie Kimura is eight years old. She lives on a tiny island with a lighthouse in the north of Japan with her family, and she knows that the fighting that once felt so far away is getting closer.

Mornings spent helping her father tend to the lighthouse and adventuring with her brother are replaced by weeks spent inside, waiting. At some point, Yukie knows, they may be bombed.

Then, it happens. One Sunday, bombs are dropped. The war ends soon after that. Everyone tells Yukie there's nothing to be scared of anymore, but she's not so sure. So she watches and she waits--until a miraculous sight finally allows her to be a kid again.

This is the true story of Yukie Kimura told in her own words, co-created with her son, illustrator Kodo Kimura, and co-written with bestselling Newbery Honor author Steve Sheinkin. Yukie's Island is an honest, thoughtful, and stirring picture book about being a child living through wartime.

Review Quotes

A 2024 Notable Social Studies Trade Book
A Freeman Book Award Notable Book
2024 Bank Street Best Book of the Year

"In simple text and pastoral illustrations, this book offers a look at how war affects children... An accessible and compelling book on a tough topic. Purchase for a unique perspective on World War II. " --School Library Journal, starred review

"Insightful and compassionate, this lightly fictionalized recounting brings welcome insight about children in conflicts and lends humanity to the ravages of war." --Booklist

"The first-person narrative is simple and direct, with the childlike tone giving particular poignancy to a callous act of war and making Yukie's experience urgent and immediate." -- The Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

"[A] story of wartime endurance." -- Publisher's Weekly

About the Author

Steve Sheinkin is the acclaimed author of fast-paced, cinematic nonfiction histories, including Fallout, Undefeated, Born to Fly, The Port Chicago 50, and Bomb. His accolades include a Newbery Honor, three Boston Globe-Horn Book Awards, a Sibert Medal and Honor, and three National Book Award finalist honors. He lives in Saratoga Springs, New York, with his wife and two children.

Kodo Kimura is a painter whose work has been exhibited in museums and galleries in the U.S. and internationally. Born in Hakodate, Hokkaido, Japan, he studied art in Tokyo and now lives in New York. Yukie's Island is his debut picture book.

Yukie Kimura was born in 1937 on a tiny remote island in south Hokkaido called Matsumae Kojima. In 1943, her family moved to Bentenjima, where the events of this picture book take place. Since then, Yukie has become a skilled craftsman and dye artist, raised two boys, and started an herbal garden business with her late husband, Haruo Kimura. She currently lives in Date, Hokkaido, Japan.