Autobiographical Essay #2: My Favorite Childhood Book

In the fourth grade, I was required to write my first book report. I can’t remember whether I was required to read this book or if I chose it myself, but what I ended up reading was a book by Marcia Savin called “The Moon Bridge.” I enjoyed the book so much that I have read it quite a few times since and so the plot is fairly familiar to me. Set in San Francisco, during the time of Japanese-American internment camps and World War II, two 5th grade girls become close friends. One girl is American, while the other is Japanese. Mitzi (the Japanese girl) is sent, with her family, to live in an internment camp. The girls continue to talk via the pen pal system for as long as possible, until Mitzi moves to a camp too far away. The girls agree to meet each other someday at the Moon Bridge. They meet there after the war when they are adults at the end of the book.
When I read this book I was at an age of beginning curiosity of my own personal background. My parents being divorced and from two backgrounds I was rightly confused. My father was only available to me via phone, where he constantly pushed his Jewish religion onto me, whether I liked it or not. Due to this my knowledge of WWII expanded only to the holocaust up until the point that I read this book. My horror of the realization that Jews were not the only ones suffering in camps during WWII kept me entranced by the book. A friendship between two girls that survived through the roughest of times also grabbed at my attention, considering my friends were sparse while I attended elementary school. I just absolutely devoured the book. I even recall creating a themed cereal box to represent the plot of the book (an assignment no doubt), but I enjoyed it anyway. To this day Asian culture and historical novels attract my reading choices greatly. This book stayed with me, both emotionally and literally (it sits on a bookshelf in my house today). Reading has intrigued me ever since.
The most recent book that I have read (for pleasure) that I have truly enjoyed was, “Memoirs of a Geisha,” by Arthur Golden. I read this novel before a movie of the novel was even considered. The story is of a woman who becomes a Geisha, by no choice of her own, and her struggle and search for happiness. My intrigue of Asian culture and historical novels definitely connect with this novel. The story focuses on just one woman, but it emphasizes the struggle of many women in the novel. Perhaps the struggle, the journey, to find one’s own happiness is was intrigues me the most. I have found that my reading style tends to lean to novels with strong female protagonists who beat the odds when the odds are stacked against them, no matter what culture (although I tend to veer away from American female protagonist stories [probably because I am American]). I love them all though, which can be seen from the fact that another favorite of mine is the novel “Wicked,” by Gregory McGuire where Oz’s Wicked Witch of the West is the good guy. I dare say though, I think my love for strong female protagonists comes from the fact that I was raised by my mother and grandmother, two very strong women.