Finally the 2024 Heroes tour! I longed for 3 years and now it’s here! At Powell’s Books in Cedar Hills, February 8th, 2024 at 7 pm. I waited so long for Heroes! All of the agony of waiting… By my surprise Alan Gratz planned a tour!? Unexpected but I will take it because soon at 17 I will enter as an enlisted man. Therefore I should live my life! I should take opportunities to enjoy my youth, when I don’t know I will leave the army!
What is the Heroes Tour? Heroes is Gratz’s newest book about Pearl Harbor. Heroes is illustrated through a story of two best friends, Frank and Stanley on the attack on Pearl Harbor. Frank and Stanley were living in a military base because their parents work for the US military. They started their touring the USS Utah, when they left, the Japanese air force raided Pearl Harbor. The thing is Stanley is Japanese American (his mother is Japanese) and in some eyes Standley is seen as an enemy. Therefore Frank needs to decide if he should support his friend or follow through what the US is about to do.
What is the US going to do? Well, when WW2 started it was Nazis Germany and German descendants or immigrants were considered the enemy, even though they have no part Nazis Germany. Therefore the US set up internment (concentration) camps like the Nazis and they put German Americans into these camps. Like the Japanese & Italian Americans, they too were put into US internment camps because the US assumed that they were enemies too, even though they did take part in the attack. Although in some ways the function of the US internment camps are similar to the ones in Nazis Germany. Individuals lost their homes and businesses, they were put into small tar paper barracks filled with many people, there wasn’t a lot of food and water, and forced to become laborers. In most cases, the US would build these internment camps in deserts.
Despite these US internment camps acting like concentration camps in Nazis Germany, eventually these camps functioned on their own; individuals taught children in small schools within the camps. Baseball and some other kinds of sports were becoming more popular. Within these camps, the US just wanted Japanese Americans away from the Pacific coast and somewhere they have trouble escaping.
The seats emptied as people get their books signed—some kids with 4 copies of the same book?! (Can one of you spare me a book?)
Alan Gratz traveled far from North Carolina to Beaverton to meet a room filled with excited middle school students, elders, & military personnel. My mistake of being 10 minutes early, the room was FILLED and books were sold—ah no more books!
Aww man, I really wanted a signed Heroes Book. But anyways, Alan Gratz signed my sticky note and that is what it all matters. Now I gotta laminate it and frame it!
I am not obsessed—I just inherited my grandmother’s genes of collecting autobiographies.
Hmm maybe I am, maybe reading his books 3 times through to wait for Heroes makes me crazy.
The meeting started with Gratz’s introduction—”How did I come up with Heroes?” First you need to understand the process of writing any of his books. Gratz writes historical fiction books. Such as Allies illustrating D-day or Grenade based on the Battle of Okinawa both events occurred during World War 2. But Heroes is about Pearl Harbor! Like many of his books, they are sequenced in a series based on World War 2 events.
So how does Gratz know all of this information? He does hours of research then drafts out historical fiction pieces based on the information and sends it to his publisher. His publisher says yes before seeing the final product because the publisher knows how well written Gratz is.
Heroes got much of its inspiration from readers requesting a book on Pearl Harbor. Pearl Harbor also hits close to home—where Gratz’s grandfather served. Gratz’s grandfather had never talked about what happened at Pearl Harbor even to his grandma. Learning about Pearl Harbor gave Gratz the space to learn and understand his grandfather’s unspoken words. Now he wants to share these unspoken words and feelings to those who may have not heard them.
What are Gratz’s previous books like? His Best New York Seller book, Refugee (2017) grew in popularity and was translated into many languages, most prominently English, Spanish, and Mandarin. Refugee was my first Alan Gratz book. It was about migration through comparison of 3 character’s experiences. The intriguing thing with Refugee is the imagery.
Gratz wrote Refugee well, like making a movie in the reader’s mind. The description feels so real. Multiple times I find myself imagining that I was the character because of gratz’s choice of diction.
Gratz’s first book, Samurai Shortstop is low on my list of favorites but if you notice and as you move along in his historical series, baseball is referenced a lot. Gratz includes baseball in the transition of Japan in Samurai Shortstop, in Brooklyn Nine about generations of baseball players, Fantasy Baseball, or in Allies characters talking about a baseball game— baseball is Gratz’s favorite sport. Gratz claimed he has never had the athletic ability to play baseball, but does enjoy the game and listening about these games.
My connection to this tour and Alan Gratz was that I discovered him in my first book club in 6th grade. I originally joined this book club because my previous romantic partner wanted to read the book so I decided to follow. Once I started reading, I fell in love with Gratz’s writing. I love the imagery and how poetic the words were. Reading Gratz’s works helped my reading efficiency and my love for books. Reading Gratz’s books gave me hope in liking reading. Then I began a surge of reading of Gratz’s books. While I was waiting for Heroes, I re-read Gratz’s series 3 times. I can’t get enough of these books. They are so good.
My favorite book by far is Allies. It’s about my obsession with D-day. But one of Gratz’s books that hit close to home for me is Two Degrees. It’s about climate change, where I am passionate about helping the Earth because I am an Environmental Libertarian. I want to help the environment and if it also helps humans, so be it.
Thank you Alan Gratz! Hope you come visit again when I am discharged from service!
