In a Flash by Donna Jo Napoli (review)

Napoli, Donna Jo In a Flash. Lamb, 2021 [400p] Trade ed. ISBN 9781101934135 $16.99 E-book ed. ISBN 9781101934159 $9.99 Reviewed from digital galleys Ad Gr. 4-6

Simona and Carolina are eight and five years old in 1940, when their father, a widely respected chef in Italy, takes them to Japan so he can cook for the Italian ambassador. The girls are enrolled in school and must learn the language and customs, watch out for each other, and differentiate between war propaganda and the truth. Then Italy switches sides in 1943, and the girls are sent to an internment camp, separated from their father. The sisters escape the camp, house with three women with radical views, work for a blind washerwoman (from whom they can hide their identity), and finally, take shelter in a Catholic mission in Hiroshima, on which Americans drop an atomic bomb. Napoli has thoroughly researched Japan in this era, making intricate references to Japanese culture and expectations of the time and Japanese perceptions of Westerners. Simona and Carolina's story is one of the power of sisterhood and survival, thrown into a country they know nothing about and adapting under dire circumstances. However, the take on Japan is highly Westernized, and Americans who swoop in at the last minute and return Simona and Carolina to their home are still their saviors, even though the girls were victims of an American atomic bomb. The American lens therefore intrudes on the non-American story, but the book may still provide an eye-opening look at the complexity of life during wartime. An extensive bibliography and notes are included.