Kirby Larson
The 2015 Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction for young people went to Dash, by Kirby Larson, published by Scholastic Press. In the book it’s January, 1942, and school scapegoating is the just the first hardship Mitsi Kashino and her Japanese-American family will encounter. Mitsi also has to leave her beloved dog Dash in the care of a neighbor when the Kashinos are sent from Seattle to an internment camp. The judges were impressed by the “deceptive ease with which Larson maintained all the pleasures of a school-and-family (and dog!) story while also providing an honest and intimate account of the prejudice and mistreatment faced by Japanese Americans during World War II.”
The annual award carries with it a prize of $5000. (end)