I didn't read this book when it was first published but remember that it was received with great acclaim by both critics and readers. I found that the positive reception which this book received was well-founded. The author is one of the first to bring up the situation of Japanese Americans being interred in concentration camps that I know of although there has been a lot more discussion of it recently. However, this story is not only a story about internment camps for the Japanese during World War II, but is a story about island people (off the coast of Washington state), about their way of life, and the changes that war brought to all of them - whether they served in the War or not. All of these topics mill around the central theme of man's innate capacity to be afraid of those whom they do not know, or who they assume is a threat to them. A sad story but one which ultimately is uplifting. It is sensitively told in everyday language. A bonus for this audio is that its narrator is the great George Guidall - one of the best readers of audio books, recognized by his peers as being such. It's worth looking him up in the NYT to find out more about him.