The Buddha in the Attic
By Julie Otsuka
2011, 129 pages
Nonfiction
Some of you may remember our 2006 Concord Reads book “When the Emperor Was Divine,” written by Julie Otsuka and originally published in 2002. The author has finally published a second book, and it is written in a similar spare style.
This time the author takes the words and stories from the oral histories left by the women who came to San Francisco nearly a century ago to marry the Japanese laborers looking for Japanese wives. Because the Japanese men could not return to Japan to find a bride, they had to send a picture to the go-between in Japan who then searched for an appropriate woman. The women were called “picture brides” because they first saw their husbands in those pictures.
Hear their words and thoughts as they explain why they chose to leave their families, travel together on boats across the ocean, meet their husbands, build a life together, start a family, attempt to adjust to this new culture, and then hear how their lives change right after the attack on Pearl Harbor.
This novella, “The Buddha in the Attic,” serves as a prequel to Otsuka's first book. Once again, this work is highly accessible for all reading levels from young adult upward.
