Book banning

Julie Otsuka’s award-winning 2002 novel “When the Emperor Was Divine” about a Japanese internment camp has been rejected by the Wisconsin school district board and barred from the tenth-grade English class curriculum.

Based on her family’s own story, this novel follows a Japanese American family forced out of their California home and sent to an internment camp in Utah. It’s a heartbreaking and vital tale - and it’s being contested for study on the grounds that it’s too diverse and, well, just too damn sad.

Where are those happy-go-lucky internment camp books when you need ‘em?