ALA Booklist (Thu Dec 28 00:00:00 CST 2023)

It was autumn when a Japanese spy began to gather information about military installations on Oahu, Hawaii, including one at Pearl Harbor. His findings enabled his country to carry out a successful attack on December 7, 1941. Much of the action took place on that day, but this book also reports on how America responded during the months that followed, from the retaliatory bombing of Tokyo to the incarceration of many Japanese Americans. Occasional archival photos illustrate the text. Favreau, whose previous books on American history include Crash (2018) and Unequal (2022), tells the story through the diverse participants and eyewitnesses to the action, from sailors and pilots on both sides to civilians who helped the wounded to President Roosevelt. While many good books on the Pearl Harbor attack are available at different reading levels, this volume is well researched and particularly attentive to offering one person's viewpoint at a time, giving a sense of immediacy to their individual experiences and intensity to their memories and observations. A very readable book on a topic of perennial interest.

Kirkus Reviews

A fresh account of Pearl Harbor through the eyes of those who experienced it.The " ‘official' story of Pearl Harbor cast a long shadow," writes Favreau, erasing many other ways the events could have been remembered. Here, he includes American, Native Hawaiian, and Japanese experiences, rounding out readers' understanding. For example, there are the stories of Black mess attendant Doris Miller, who received a Navy Cross for heroism, only to drown in 1943, when a Japanese torpedo sank his ship; nervous Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa, 28; and the Japanese American Watanabe family of Honolulu, who lost their father when he was shot by U.S. fighter planes while working on his fishing boat. The book also includes Japanese perspectives, from Emperor Hirohito to Kazuo Sakamaki, who left Japan for Hawaii on his 18th birthday, knowing, as he put it, that he "was saying good-bye to all things to which a normal person clings." The multitude of voices straddling national, political, and hierarchical boundaries reveals the tremendous cost to all. Favreau reminds readers that this was a crisis on American soil that, like others, has led to racist responses. His measured tone successfully conveys that in times of tragedy, we must avoid scapegoating. He accessibly and engagingly shows readers that with Pearl Harbor, the real story is "more complicated-and much more interesting, tragic, and heroic-than the simplified version."An inclusive, expansive take on a pivotal historical moment. (key figures, timeline, source notes, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

Publishers Weekly (Fri Oct 06 00:00:00 CDT 2023)

In this important work, Favreau (Unequal) employs multiple perspectives to render a jaw-dropping account of Pearl Harbor, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) called “a date that will live in infamy.” Through immediate and urgent firsthand accounts from American, Japanese, and Native Hawaiian citizens and military leaders, the author revisits the “interesting, tragic, and heroic” actions that occurred on Dec. 7, 1941. Sources include Takeo Yoshikawa (1912–1993), a Japanese spy who—while posing as a diplomat, dishwasher, and tourist—mapped out “every military installation on Oahu”; Kazuo Sakamaki (1918–1999), a Japanese mini-sub operator who became the first WWII POW detained in America; a nine-year-old Hawaiian boy whose family farm bordered Pearl Harbor; and Doris Miller (1919–1943), a Black mess hall attendant on the battleship West Virginia, who was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism. Alongside depictions of communal recovery, Favreau’s balanced and nonpartisan narration renders the toll that the tragedy exacted on Native Hawaiians and the racism that Japanese Americans endured in incarceration camps. It’s an extensively researched telling that is artfully conceived and grippingly told. Timelines and source notes conclude. Ages 10–up. Agent: Tanya McKinnon, McKinnon Literary. (Nov.)