Vashon-Maury Island


Book Description

Vashon-Maury Island lies between Seattle and Tacoma and is connected to the mainland by the Washington State Ferries. The bridge proposed in the 1950s and 1960s did not materialize, which helped retain the island's isolation and rural lifestyle. Like other Puget Sound islands, its original economy was based on logging, fishing, brick-making, and agriculture, especially its strawberries. Island industries included the largest dry dock on the West Coast, shipbuilding, and ski manufacturing. Distinct from the other islands, Vashon-Maury is the only one whose major town is not on the water. Originally inhabited for thousands of years by the S'Homamish people, the island's first white settler arrived in 1865. Today, 145 years later, the population is more than 11,000.




Islands Magazine


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A Brief History of Vashon Island


Book Description

Reachable only by ferry, Vashon Island is a breathtaking rural retreat from the bustling activity of nearby Seattle and Tacoma. The island's first inhabitants, the sx???bab", took advantage of its evergreen forests and rich marine resources. In 1792, George Vancouver was the first Anglo to discover the island and named it after Captain James Vashon. By the late 1800s, the first white settlers had established farms and greenhouses that supplied nearby cities with berries, tomatoes and cucumbers. Ferries drove development in the later half of the century, introducing new industries and tourism to the area. While both influenced by and isolated from the mainland, the island developed its own unique character treasured by locals. Merging human and natural history, author Bruce Haulman presents the rich heritage of this thriving community.




WE HEREBY REFUSE


Book Description

Three voices. Three acts of defiance. One mass injustice. The story of camp as you’ve never seen it before. Japanese Americans complied when evicted from their homes in World War II -- but many refused to submit to imprisonment in American concentration camps without a fight. In this groundbreaking graphic novel, meet JIM AKUTSU, the inspiration for John Okada’s No-No Boy, who refuses to be drafted from the camp at Minidoka when classified as a non-citizen, an enemy alien; HIROSHI KASHIWAGI, who resists government pressure to sign a loyalty oath at Tule Lake, but yields to family pressure to renounce his U.S. citizenship; and MITSUYE ENDO, a reluctant recruit to a lawsuit contesting her imprisonment, who refuses a chance to leave the camp at Topaz so that her case could reach the U.S. Supreme Court. Based upon painstaking research, We Hereby Refuse presents an original vision of America’s past with disturbing links to the American present.




Red Ranger Came Calling


Book Description

While spending Christmas in 1939 with a well-meaning aunt, a young boy who does not believe in Santa Claus has an unusual experience that changes his thinking.




Looking Like the Enemy


Book Description

In 1941, Mary Matsuda Gruenewald was a teenage girl who, like other Americans, reacted with horror to the bombing of Pearl Harbor. Yet soon she and her family were among 110,000 innocent people imprisoned by the U.S. government because of their Japanese ancestry. In this eloquent memoir, she describes both the day-to-day and the dramatic turning points of this profound injustice: what is was like to face an indefinite sentence in crowded, primitive camps; the struggle for survival and dignity; and the strength gained from learning what she was capable of and could do to sustain her family. It is at once a coming-of-age story with interest for young readers, an engaging narrative on a topic still not widely known, and a timely warning for the present era of terrorism. Complete with period photos, the book also brings readers up to the present, including the author's celebration of the National Japanese American Memorial dedication in 2000.




PNLA Quarterly


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An American River


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"We were afraid of its impenetrable darkness. Afraid of its industrial smell. We were afraid of the things that lived beneath its surface and the things that had died there. We were afraid of spotting a hand or a head bobbing in the rafts of garbage that floated by. We were afraid of submerged intake valves that sucked water into the factories along the banks. We were afraid of the river's filth. It wasn't the kind of filth that came from playing with your friends. It was grownup filth. The kind that scared the blue out of water and coated the riverbank with oily black goo. It was the kind of filth you could taste, the kind that could make you sick, maybe even kill you. We were afraid of getting splashed with river water or of touching river rocks. We were afraid of falling in or-God forbid-going under. We were afraid of the river's anger at being so befouled, and afraid, most of all, of the revenge we felt certain the river would exact." New Jersey's Passaic River rises in a pristine wetland and ends in a federal Superfund site. In "An American River," author and New Jersey native Mary Bruno kayaks its length in an effort to discover what happened to her hometown river. The Passaic's wildly convoluted course invites detours into the river's flood-prone natural history, New Jersey's unique geology, the corrupt practices of the Newark chemical plant that produced Agent Orange and poisoned the river with dioxin, and into the lives of an unforgettable cast of characters who have lived and worked along the Passaic and who are trying, even now, to save it. Part natural history, part personal history, part rollicking adventure, the book is a narrative meditation on the wonder of nature, the enduring ties of family, and the power of water and loss. "My great grandmother liked to say, 'Don't shit in the nest, '" writes Bruno. "The Passaic River is an object lesson in what can happen when we ignore that simple, salty advice." ""An American River" is an intricate and satisfying braid of memoir, history, science, nature writing, and acute social observation. This is an invigorating and hopeful book, and its sense of wonder is infectious. It's not, I think, too great a stretch to say that it holds its own on the shelf alongside "Walden," "Silent Spring" and "A Sand County Almanac."" Jonathan Raban Author of "Driving Home: An American Journey"




Ghost Dance


Book Description

A FUGITIVE PROFILER WITH A FRIGHTENING TALENT AN ASSASSIN WHO NEVER FAILS A SNIPER WHO NEVER MISSES AN INNOCENT WOMAN CAUGHT IN THE CROSSFIRE




Mosquito Fleet of South Puget Sound


Book Description

Before the advent of roads in western Washington, steamboats of the Mosquito Fleet swarmed all over Puget Sound. Sidewheelers, stern-wheelers, and propeller-driven, they ranged from the tiny 40-foot Marie to the huge 282-foot Yosemite, and from the famous Flyer to the unknown Leota. Floating stores like the Vaughn and shrimpers like the Violet sailed the same waters as the elegant Great Lakes lady, the Chippewa, and the homely Willie. A few, like the Bob Irving and Blue Star, died spectacularly or, like Major Tompkins, shipwrecked after a short time, while others began new lives as tugboats or auto ferries; some even survive today as excursion boats like the Virginia V. From 1853 to modern car ferries in the 1920s, this volume chronicles the heyday of steamboating--a unique segment of maritime history--from modest launch to sleek liner.