Graphic Novels, Manga, and Picture Books About Japanese, Japanese American, and Japanese Canadian Individuals’ World War II Experiences

Moving and Captivating Illustrated Stories

If you are interested in reading some very moving and captivating illustrated stories about the experiences of individuals of Japanese descent during World War II, I have lots of recommendations for you. Below, you can find recommendations for incredible graphic novels, manga (Japanese graphic novels), picture books, and other illustrated stories about the war told from a variety of perspectives.

Obviously, the experiences and perspectives of Japanese Americans and Japanese Canadians during the war were very different than those of Japanese citizens living in Japan. And the experiences and perspectives of Japanese citizens living abroad as diplomats at that time were also very different, as were those of Japanese soldiers overseas.

I hope you find that the diversity of perspectives represented in the books recommended in this post provide interesting material for comparison. Ideally, I would have also included all of the other incredible graphic stories I found about the experiences of individuals of non-Japanese descent during the war as well for even more comparison, but I found too many such stories to fit well into a single post.  So, I plan to share those other recommendations in a series of posts, which I will slowly spread out over time (interspersed with posts on other topics).

One of the most eye-opening experiences I have ever had studying history on my own was when I immersed myself in graphic stories about World War II. I found it absolutely fascinating to get snippets of visual stories from the perspectives of individuals from all over the world about a single historic period. Often the stories I read were written by wartime survivors, their children, their grandchildren, or authors who interviewed or studied them. They were a very easily accessible source of firsthand and secondhand historical accounts. And as illustrated stories are often very short, it was relatively easy to read lots of them and get lots of different perspectives quickly.

If you teach, or are a student of, history (anywhere on the spectrum of elementary school to graduate school level); you might find that some of the illustrated accounts I recommend in this series of posts could be fascinating primary sources for book reports, papers, theses, and dissertations.

Many of these works could also be fascinating to study for their literary and artistic attributes.

While reading graphic stories about World War II en masse, at times I felt almost like a director creating a movie about a single event, switching from one camera angle with a certain set of filters, to another. At other times, I felt almost like I was visiting an incredible exhibit at a museum, in which all of the artists had painted the same event from different perspectives and with different styles.

For me, reading many graphic stories about the war made the experience uniquely perspective enhancing. However, I believe that my favorite books from the experience stand on their own as absolutely captivating stories. And I hope you will feel comfortable picking even one book that most appeals to you from the recommendations.

The first post in my World War II graphic series was “32 Graphic Novel & Picture Book World War II Celebrity Biographies.” If you haven’t already read it, you may enjoy checking it out now.

I decided to focus this second post in the series on the experiences of individuals of Japanese descent in honor of a friend (and subscriber to Bookishly Delightful) and her mother. My friend shared with me (after my first post in the series) that her Japanese American mother had been incarcerated in an internment camp as a child during the war. She also shared with me a little about her family’s history and told me about her interest in a book I had recommended in that first post (George Takei’s autobiography, They Called Us Enemy, about his childhood internment camp experiences). I hope my friend will find equally interesting some of the additional books I found and recommend in this post about Japanese American experiences during the war, and I hope that these recommendations can help all readers of this post better understand what her mother endured.

My series of posts with illustrated World War II recommendations will be far from comprehensive. First, I am only recommending my favorite works. Second, my focus is on the individual, ground-level experience of the war. I was particularly drawn to well-told, well-illustrated, interesting stories about moments of individual kindness, courage, and resilience that transcended their difficult historic moment. I was also very interested in reading stories that could help me better understand the toll of the war on individuals.

After some initial disappointing sampling, I did not seek out World War II graphic works about military strategies or technologies, or about big picture issues. I also did not seek out books that glorify violence or fighting. There are a lot of superhero, science fiction, fantasy, and horror comic books about the war that you will have to look elsewhere to find. Also, I often found that contemporaneous and older graphic works about the war rubbed me the wrong way for one reason or another, including sometimes because of racist imagery or cartoonish depictions of Hitler. So, most (but not all) of the works I am recommending in this series are not particularly old.

In summary, my posts in this series will not provide a full picture of the range of types of graphic works about the period that exist, nor do they delve into many important and difficult issues about the war. But they will provide a high-quality, visual and written storytelling window into what a subset of individuals were experiencing during the war. I hope you find that window to be as absolutely fascinating as I do.

Informative videos (either about the books or about the subjects of the books) that may pique your interest are included below for some of the works. And if you click on the titles of the books, you will be linked to Goodreads’ pages for those books where you can see what the book covers look like and read more reviews.

At what age should the picture books recommended in this post be read?

Although some of the books recommended in this post appear to have been written for young children (and many of those seem child appropriate to me), my recommendations in this post are primarily for adult readers. I appreciated all of the books recommended below as an adult reader myself.

As all of the books mentioned in this post deal with war (and sometimes additional upsetting issues like the unjust incarceration of children and the devastating effects of experiencing nuclear warfare), please read them first yourself before deciding whether to share them with the children in your life at their current age. And please think about how you may want to discuss and explain them, if you choose to share them with children in your life.

A small number of the World War II picture books I have encountered about particularly haunting subjects—including Hiroshima No Pika (which is about experiencing the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and is recommended below) and Benno and the Night of Broken Glass (which I will write more about in another post and is about a particularly dark turning point in Germany towards Jews)—were more powerfully impactful to me as an adult reader because of how disturbing I found it to read those devastating stories in picture book form.

Although I appreciate those books greatly myself and highly recommend them to other adult readers who feel up for reading powerful stories about dark moments in human history, I personally would not choose to share them with very young children. But then again, real children (who were the inspiration for those books) experienced those haunting events. And I am not an expert in child psychology. I think it would be fascinating to hear these types of haunting picture books be discussed in university-level children’s literature, general literature, psychology, and sociology courses; to see what arises in those discussions.

Maggie Tokuda-Hall, the author of the lovely picture book Love in the Library (which is one of the picture books recommended below), made a passionate argument for the importance of not shying away from telling children stories that have uncomfortable moments (during a February 19, 2022 interview on the Literaticast podcast starting around the 27th minute). She grew up hearing the story she wrote about, the story of how her grandparents fell in love while incarcerated at an internment camp for Japanese Americans during the war. To her, it was both a beautiful story about resilience and a story about ugly policies. And it was her own childhood family story that helped shape her. She thinks she recalls hearing the story when she was at a picture-book reading age. She said: “I think that a lot of the coming of age you do as a teenager that makes you so angry, is in large part because people have lied to you about the nature of the world. … People in charge are not necessarily good people. … I think the lies come from a really loving place, … but I think we do them [kids] a real disservice in the long run by being squeamish about these individual moments of discomfort.” She explained: “I’m not showing them graphic pictures and videos ... I’m just telling them that this happened, and I’m using accessible language to describe it.”

Toshi Maruki, the author of the haunting picture book mentioned above about the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima wrote in an explanatory afterward to her book: “It is very difficult to tell young people about something very bad that happened, in the hope that their knowing will help keep it from happening again.”

I would be very interested in hearing your thoughts about picture books that grapple with difficult and/or haunting issues in the comment section below.

I wish I didn’t feel obliged to say that I am very concerned about a recent movement to ban lots of perspective-deepening books in the US and that I hope that all of the graphic World War II stories I will be recommending in my series of posts will be available in public libraries in the US and around the world.

And also, despite the above discussion about haunting picture books, sensitive readers do not fear. Many of the books recommended in the series will be heartwarming and inspiring (and not haunting).

Even many of the recommended illustrated stories about internment camps for Japanese Canadians and Japanese Americans focus on the ways that various individuals found to help them become more resilient and endure their difficult and unjust situations; including by playing baseball, gardening, making art, reading books, and finding a pet. Inspiring stories about finding ways to increase resilience can often be uplifting for sensitive readers at a variety of ages.

Graphic novels and picture books about Japanese American and Japanese Canadian internment camp experiences

Citizen 13660

by Miné Okubo (illustrated autobiography, no ebook edition)

First published in 1946; this detailed, captivating, ground-breaking, autobiographical, firsthand account of incarceration in Japanese American internment camps is an important historical record and a remarkable artistic work.

Ruth Asawa: An Artist Takes Shape

by Sam Nakahira (graphic novel)

One of my new-to-me, favorite microgenres is illustrated biographies of artists; so perhaps it is not surprising that an illustrated biography of Ruth Asawa (who is well known for her modern wire sculptures and art education advocacy) is among my favorite graphic books about Japanese American experiences during the war. This biography is written as if it were an autobiography. It describes Asawa’s experiences during the war, as well as her experiences post-war studying art in Mexico with famed German born modern artist Josef Albers (a book about whom I recommended in my post “32 Graphic Novel & Picture Book World War II Celebrity Biographies”). It also delves into Asawa’s post-war experiences in California raising children with a husband of a different race (soon after interracial marriages were legalized there) and breaking into the art world as a female artist. At the first internment camp Asawa was sent to (as a teenager) during the war, she had an opportunity to study art from Disney artists who had also been incarcerated. Both the written and visual storytelling in this book is captivating.

“Everything was gray until I met the cartoonists. Truly, art has saved me.”

They Called Us Enemy

by George Takei, Justin Eisinger, and Steven Scott; illustrated by Harmony Becker (graphic novel)

This is a stand-out, powerful and moving, autobiographical account of Star Trek actor and activist George Takei’s childhood wartime experiences as an interned Japanese American. I also recommended it in the post “32 Graphic Novel & Picture Book World War II Celebrity Biographies.” The ebook edition is currently available in the US via a number of library apps and Kindle Unlimited, as well as for purchase.

Write to Me: Letters from Japanese American Children to the Librarian They Left Behind

by Cynthia Grady, illustrated by Amiko Hirao (picture book)

This absolutely lovely, touching, partially epistolary, nonfiction, biographical picture book is about compassionate San Diego librarian Clara Breed. She corresponded with, and sent books to, a number of the Japanese American children who used to visit her library before they were sent to internment camps during the war. She also advocated on their behalf. If you like epistolary stories, books about books, and stories about kind and honorable people; you are in for a treat with this book. It is also very well written and has sweet illustrations. I also recommended it in the post “Over 50 Epistolary Books.”

Love in the Library

by Maggie Tokuda-Hall, illustrated by Yas Imamura (picture book)

This is an absolutely lovely and moving, nonfiction, World War II picture book about books. The author shares the true story of how her Japanese American grandparents fell in love in the library of an internment camp during the war.

We Are Not Strangers

by Josh Tuininga (graphic novel)

This moving, biographical story is about a Jewish man who secretly did his best to protect the assets of his Japanese American friends after they were sent to an internment camp, so that they would have something left to return to after the war was over. It is a lovely story (at a moment of historical ugliness) about cross-cultural friendship, compassion, and family. It is extremely well illustrated and touching. I also recommended it in the post “Bookishly Delightful’s Best Books of 2023.”

A Place Where Sunflowers Grow

by Amy Lee-Tai, illustrated by Felicia Hoshino (picture book, no ebook edition)

This story is inspired by the author’s grandmother’s and mother’s internment camp experiences. Art classes and gardening help a little girl deal with her difficult circumstances. The illustrations are lovely, and the text is in both English and Japanese.

Barbed Wire Baseball

by Marissa Moss, illustrated by Yuko Shimizu (picture book)

This captivatingly illustrated biography of Japanese American baseball player Kenichi ”Zeni” Zenimura delves into his experiences playing baseball within an internment camp.

Stealing Home

by J. Torres, illustrated by David Namisato (graphic novel)

This middle grade, historical fiction graphic novel, told from the perspective of a Japanese Canadian boy, is about Japanese Canadian internment camp experiences and the important role that baseball played at the time. It is also a family drama.

Baseball Saved Us

by Ken Mochizuki, illustrated by Dom Lee (picture book)

This is another story about what a big, positive difference playing baseball made at a wartime internment camp, especially for many incarcerated boys and their fathers. It is interesting to read this book together with the other internment camp baseball stories to see how they tell similar stories in very different ways.

A Scarf for Keiko

by Ann Malaspina, illustrated by Merrilee Liddiard (picture book)

This is a thought-provoking and sweet, historical fiction picture book aimed at young readers. It is about a friendship between a Jewish American boy and a Japanese American girl who was sent to an internment camp.

Bluejay in the Desert

by Marlene Shigekawa, illustrated by Isao Kikuchi (picture book, no ebook edition)

In this picture book aimed at young readers, a little boy at an internment camp in the desert learns about bluejays (including about how they are as out of place in the desert as he is) as his grandfather carves a bird for him out of wood. Also, some Native Americans deliver a gift of seeds.

Hello Maggie!

by Shigeru Yabu, illustrated by Willie Ito (picture book, no ebook edition)

This autobiographical picture book is about how raising a baby, wild, magpie bird (Maggie) as a pet, helped make the experience of being incarcerated in an internment camp as a child during the war more endurable for the author.

“Maggie had kept all of our hopes and spirits high. Sometimes we’d forget we were at war.”

Flowers from Mariko

by Rick Naguchi and Daneen Jenks, illustrated by Michelle Reiko Kumata (picture book, no ebook edition)

This historical fiction story starts after the war ended and explores the difficulties a young girl and her family face after leaving an internment camp. Gardening helps the family endure.

US World War II home front propaganda posters

The Art of War: Volume 4: The Americans

by Artemis Design (images of wartime posters)

This collection of real, American, wartime, propaganda posters is included here for those interested in better understanding what many Americans were seeing and thinking about during the war. Some of the propaganda posters contain very racist depictions of Japanese people. This is the only book with such images that I am recommending in this post. I am doing so for those who want to more fully understand the historical situation at that time. Do not read this book if you are not feeling up to looking at such images. The ebook edition is available on Kindle Unlimited.

Graphic novels and picture books about non-internment camp World War II Japanese American experiences

Rising Above: The Wataru “Wat” Misaka Story

by Haley Diep, illustrated by Naomi Giddens (picture book)

Wataru Misaka lived outside a relocation zone and was not sent to an internment camp as so many other peaceful Japanese Americans were during the war. Instead, he played basketball at the University of Utah and then enlisted in the US Army. He was then deployed to Hiroshima. After the war, he became the first person of color to play professional basketball in the NBA. I also recommended this book in my post “32 Graphic Novel & Picture Book World War II Celebrity Biographies.”

Wat Kept Playing: The Inspiring Story of Wataru Misaka and His Rise to the NBA

by Emily Inouye Huey, illustrated by Kaye Kang (picture book)

This recently published picture book is also about the first person of color to play professional basketball, Waturu Misaka. It is very well illustrated and well told. And it delves into Misaka’s experiences during the war.

It Began With a Page: How Gyo Fujikawa Drew the Way

by Kyo Maclear, illustrated by Julie Morstad (picture book)

Gyo Fujikawa was a Japanese American artist who wrote and illustrated ground-breaking, diverse picture books for children. While she wasn’t sent to an internment camp herself during the war because she was living in New York, members of her family were. This illustrated biography is very well told and well illustrated.

Sakamoto’s Swim Club: How a Teacher Led an Unlikely Team to Victory

by Julie Abery, illustrated by Chris Sasaki (picture book)

Soichi Sakamoto (a Japanese Hawaiian science teacher) offered to take responsibility for, and coach, sugar plantation workers’ children who were getting in trouble for swimming in irrigation ditches while their parents toiled. While not a great swimmer himself, he became an incredibly good coach. Initially, he coached his swimmers in irrigation ditches, but later he was able to coach them in a pool. The war disrupted the Olympic goals of his athletes, many of whom left to fight. However, in 1948 after the war ended, one of his swimmers won an Olympic gold. Sakamoto continued to coach and help swimmers reach great heights for many years thereafter. This colorfully and charmingly illustrated picture book aimed at young readers tells his inspirational story concisely and poetically. Unfortunately, the book does not delve into Sakamoto’s personal experiences during the war, but you can learn about how Japanese Hawaiians fared in general from The National WWII Museum’s post: “Japanese Americans and the Wartime Experience in Hawaii.”

Graphic novels, picture books, and other illustrated stories about Japanese individuals’ military and diplomatic World War II experiences overseas

Thirty Minutes Over Oregon: A Japanese Pilot’s World War II Story

by Marc Tyler Nobleman, illustrated by Melissa Iwai (picture book)

This lovely, heart-warming, nonfiction book tells the little-known story of a Japanese pilot who bombed the mainland of the US during the war and then returned years after the war to try to help build better cross-cultural relationships with the townspeople near where he bombed.

“FUKUTSU! (Never Give Up!)”

by Nora Krug (a 5 page illustrated biography)

This is the incredible, true story of a Japanese soldier who (not knowing the war was over) hid in a jungle in the Philippines for 29 years after the war ended. You can find the biography via Krug’s website.

Grass

by Keum Suk Gendry-Kim (graphic novel)

The main character in this graphic novel is not Japanese, but she was profoundly affected by Japanese soldiers. This nonfiction book is about a very upsetting, important story. I admire the author for bringing more attention to how Korean “comfort women” were forced into sexual slavery for Japanese soldiers during the war. While the author’s storytelling and illustration styles aren’t among my personal favorites in this post, this book is among the most haunting stories I have read about World War II. And it is a story that is in need of much more attention. Content warnings: sexual slavery, violence, cruelty.

Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story

by Ken Mochizuki, illustrated by Dom Lee, afterward by Hiroki Sugihara (picture book, no ebook edition)

In 1940, Japanese diplomat Chiune Sugihara was stationed in Lithuania. This extremely moving biography, narrated by his son (who was a child when the events in the story took place), recounts how Sugihara courageously and honorably defied his government’s instructions. He helped save the lives of thousands of Jews by issuing them visas (which he wasn’t supposed to have issued) so they could flee Europe.

Graphic novels, manga, picture books, and other illustrated stories about Japanese individuals’ experiences of World War II in Japan

In This Corner of the World

by Fumiyo Kouno (manga/anime)

This is by far my favorite animated depiction of what life was like on the Japanese home front during World War II that I have watched so far. Although there is a black and white manga version that you can read, I strongly prefer the full color, beautiful anime (Japanese animated) movie version of In This Corner of the World. This lovely work of historical fiction illustrates an artistic young woman’s experiences in wartime Japan. I also recommended this anime in my post “Anime Recommendations for Contemplative Grown-Ups.” In the US, the anime is currently streaming on Peacock, and may be available for you to borrow from your library via the hoopla app.

My Hiroshima

by Junko Morimoto (picture book, no ebook edition)

Artist Junko Morimoto powerfully recalls her childhood in Hiroshima, Japan and what it was like to live through a nuclear bombing and its aftermath. Content warnings: haunting account of nuclear bombing, destruction, and injury.

Okinawa

by Susumu Higa, translated by Jocelyne Allen (manga)

This award-winning, humane, long manga contains a number of interesting, graphic, short, historical fiction stories that were inspired by real people and real events at various times in the Japanese island of Okinawa’s history. A number of the stories sympathetically illustrate the difficulties the local population endured while stuck between opposing Japanese and American forces during the war. Other stories depict the complicated ways the post-war American base on Okinawa has affected locals, as well as American soldiers.

“Kamikaze”

by Nora Krug in The Best American Comics 2012 edited by Françoise Mouly (a 10-page illustrated biography in a larger anthology of comics)

This is a captivating biography of a Japanese kamikaze pilot who (unlike many of his fellow kamikaze pilots) survived the war. He also witnessed the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima. You can find a sample of it on Krug’s website.

Hiroshima No Pika

by Toshi Maruki (picture book, no ebook edition)

How do you illustrate the horrors of experiencing a nuclear bombing for a picture book? This is one artist’s heart-felt expression of a mother-daughter survival story. The story is based on the haunting, real-life experiences of a Hiroshima survivor she met. Content warnings: death, destruction, injury, illness, and nudity.

Yukie’s Island: My Family’s World War II Story

by Yukie Kimura, Kōdo Kimura, and Steve Sheinkin, illustrated by Kōdo Kimura (picture book)

This true story illustrates the wartime perspective of a Japanese child who lived on an isolated, tiny island at the time.

The Bicycle Man

by Allen Say (picture book)

This is a story about some joyful interactions (which take place in Japan not long after the war ended) between two American soldiers and some Japanese children (and their school’s principal). If you are looking for a happy picture book about World War II; this is a lovely, heartwarming story.

Drawing from Memory

by Allen Say (illustrated autobiography)

In this captivating, well-illustrated autobiography; readers can learn about artist Allen Say’s childhood wartime experiences in Japan, as well as his real post-war experiences that inspired his book The Bicycle Man. Say also tells (and illustrates) his own post-war, coming-of-age story about how he began to forge a path towards becoming a professional artist. It is a special work.

What are your thoughts?

In the comment section, you are welcome to share your thoughts about the above musings and recommendations, as well as share your own recommendations for your favorite illustrated works about the experiences of individuals of Japanese descent during the war.