Lost Childhood: My Life in a Japanese Prison Camp During World War II

I received an advance uncorrected reader's softcover edition sent to reviewers and read it in one sitting. At 110-pages, with an attractive cover, a nice large font that's easy on the eyes and a personal narrative style, this book will be a welcome addition to libraries and classrooms serving upper elementary school and middle school readers. That's not to say that adults with an interest in the subject won't enjoy it, they will too - but, the target reader appears to be in the 10-15 year-old range. The subject matter is serious as the book serves as a memoir of Annelex Hofstra Layon's childhood years growing up in Java (now Indonesia), and then spending three and a half years in Japanese internment camps for Dutch citizens, followed by her family's attempt to live back near their original home during the Indonesian war for independence - which claimed her father's life. As the book closes, she recounts moving to the Netherlands and then on to the United States. While not a morbid, or particularly distressing book, harsh, adult subjects are not avoided - the lack of privacy when using the bathroom, the beatings of parents by Japanese guards, seeing the bodies of those who have died from disease tossed into the back of a truck, watching as two women are tied to fence and left to die for trying to steal food. Serious content, to be sure. But, the overall theme is "love conquers all" as even though she must endure even the most difficult of circumstances, she acknowledges and honors the tie that binds her to her mother and grandmother, while missing her brother and her father. These themes of love and hope trump the serious content and make this a memorable book for adolescent-age children. Layson is assisted in writing this volume by the noted historian, Herman J. Viola, Ph.D., curator emeritus of the Smithsonian Institution. I am familiar with his writing from reading his recent volume, "Warriors in Uniform: The Legacy of American Indian Heroism" (Washington, DC: National Geographic, 2008) -- an excellent exploration of the role Native Americans have played in conflicts ranging from the American Revolution to Iraq and Afghanistan. Adult readers wishing to explore Japanese treatment of prisoners more fully will find Manny Layson's book, "Some Survived: An Eyewitness Account of the Bataan Death March and the Men Who Lived Through It" (Chapel Hill: Algonquin Books, 2004) to be a worthy read. While Layson deals with the issue of prisoner mistreatment somewhat softly, Lawton describes in detail the role of Japanese soldiers in the horrific savagery inflicted upon allied soldiers and civilians. Many of these guards were tracked down, tried, and executed after the war, but one still can't help but be deeply troubled by reading over and again, of the pleasure Japanese guards took in the starving, beating and killing of prisoners during World War II. Finally, readers may wish to track down Greg Leck's book, "With Captives of Empire: The Japanese Inte