“Within These Lines is a shifting story of love, hope, and family set against the dark history of Japanese internment in the us. This book had me captivated!” -Maureen McQuerry, YALSA award-winning writer of The Peculiars

Evalina Cassano’s existence in an Italian-American family in 1941 is quiet and normal … until she falls deeply in love with Taichi Hamasaki, the kid of Japanese immigrants. Despite the scandal it could cause and the actual fact that interracial marriage is illegal in California, Evalina and about Within These Lines Taichi vow they will find a way to be jointly. But anti-Japanese emotions erupt across the country after the assault on Pearl Harbor, and Taichi and his family are forced to give up their farm and are incarcerated inside a Japanese internment camp.

Degrading treatment at Manzanar Relocation Middle is indeed difficult, Taichi concerns he will ever leave the camp alive. Treasured words from Evalina are his single connection to the outside globe. Embracing the boldest actions she can to help Taichi, Evalina begins to radically speak out at school and in the home, shining a light upon this dark and shameful racial injustice.

With their future together on the line, Evalina and Taichi can only hold true to their values and have confidence in their love against all odds to have any hope of earning it back to one another.

Within These Lines is:

A historical YA novel set against the background of WWII and the shameful era of American injustice surrounding Japan internment campsTold from your dual factors of view of the Italian-American girl and Japanese-American man brought jointly by love then separated by war, injustice, and hatredAs haunting and unflinching as it is hope-filled and love-drivenPerfect for supporters of Monica Hesse, Ruta Sepetys, and Elizabeth Wein