If you enjoy historical fiction, you’ll want to read Tallgrass by Sandra Eller. In it, she tells the story of Ellis, a rural community in Colorado’s sugar beet country. During WW II, the federal government erected Tallgrass, Japanese-American internment camp, a few miles out of town near the Stroud family’s farm.
Tallgrass is also a coming of age tale. Rennie Stroud, a precocious thirteen-year-old farm girl, narrates the action. Her innocence fades as prejudice against the Japanese-Americans increases, a classmate is violently murdered, and her mother’s health fails.
Dallas’s characters are memorable and tenderly flawed, especially Rennie and her parents. The major characters have distinctive, unmistakable voices that make them real. The townspeople are complex, doing good one moment and making fools of themselves the next. The descriptions of farm life reminded me of my mother’s stories of growing up on a Minnesota farm in the same era. And the historical details are accurate without being didactic.
If you were alive during WWII, Tallgrass will wrap you in memories. If you’re too young to remember the 1940s, let the book take you there while you read. Your grasp of an important time in our nation’s history will increase, along with your understanding of the prejudices that have long marked our country. Tallgrass is definitely worth a read.
