This sequel to Mazer's A Boy at War (2002) picks up after Adam, his mother, and his little sister have left Honolulu and moved to Bakersfield, California. Still under the shadow of his father's death at Pearl Harbor, Adam struggles to get his bearings. When his Japanese American friend, Davi, writes from Hawaii to ask Adam to find his father, whom the authorities have taken to California, Adam begins a quest that takes him to an internment camp. Written in first person, the novel chronicles the emotional confusion Adam feels as he looks for the right path and his satisfaction when he finds it. Although reading the previous book is not necessary, the scene in which Adam first sees Davi's father again as well as the many mentions of Adam's father will resonate more powerfully for readers familiar with it. The book ends with a time line of the Pacific war in 1942, a discussion of the home front, and quotes from documents related to the Japanese internment. A satisfying coming-of-age story in a well-documented historical setting.

After his father's death at Pearl Harbor, Adam's family moves to California and his Japanese-American friend Davi asks him to deliver a message to a family member at an internment camp. The plot relies on too many coincidences and the final chapters seem tacked on, but fans of A Boy at War may be interested in this fast-paced sequel.

In wartime, should a person help a friend whose parents are immigrants from an enemy nation? That's the dilemma Adam Pelko has to deal with when he gets a letter from his Japanese-American friend Davi Mori. Adam watched his father's ship go down during the bombing of Pearl Harbor and now lives in California with his mother and sister. The letter asks the still grieving Adam, who is struggling to cope with a new school, additional family responsibilities, and a tough part-time job, to deliver a note to a relative whom Davi hopes can find his father, confined in a California internment camp. In this initially bracing, though ultimately unpersuasive, sequel to A Boy at War (2001), Adam surmounts numerous obstacles, including the opposition of his mother to help his friend. But under the weight of his family, work, school, and a tentative romance with a slightly older girl, the core and newly resonant issue of knowing when and if loyalty to friend and country contradict, loses its focus and urgency. (Fiction. 10-14)

Gr 5-9-Adam Pelko's father was killed in Pearl Harbor when the USS Arizona was bombed. Now, the boy, his mother, and sister have moved from Hawaii to California in the midst of America's involvement in World War II. He receives a letter from his Japanese-American friend, Davi Mori, in which Davi tells him that his father is being held in an internment camp in California and asks for Adam's help in finding him. The teen struggles with loyalty to his friend and disobeying his late father's wishes and his mother's determination to keep him from getting involved. In this fast-paced book, readers see the loyalty and risks that must sometimes be taken for friendship. Although this book can stand alone, those who read A Boy at War (S & S, 2001) will have a greater understanding of Adam's friendship and the dilemma he faces.-Denise Moore, O'Gorman Junior High School, Sioux Falls, SD Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.