Elephant Run

This is a fiction book about a young boy in Burma. He had been in England, but his mother sent him to Burma to avoid the German bombing. Nick is the boy and his luck isn't very good since, not long after getting to Burma, the Japanese come in and take over the plantation he lives on. His father is put into a labor camp, and Nick stays at the plantation where he's beaten regularly by one of the former workers.

At first the Burmese think the Japanese will be better than the British, but they find out pretty quickly that the Japanese were going to be considerably worse. Nick's main hope is to escape along with his father and some others.

In the course of the story we meet one Japanese soldier who is really much better than the average, and who is not at all vicious to others.

The latter part of the book deals with Nick and the group's effort to escape Burma but to first rescue a friend of theirs and Nick's father, while all the time in danger from the Japanese.

It's a really good story.



Main Index
Japan main page
Japanese-American Internment Camps index page
Japan and World War II index page