Like Dicken’s ‘A Tale of Two Cities’, it is about to become both the best of times, and the worst. No one could possibly predict or be ready for the events that take place. MY THOUGHTS: Steven may think that he is ready to face whatever is ahead, but he is wrong. On the way, Steven finds a place he belongs and a lesson about love that will last him his lifetime. But after Nick unexpectedly disappears one day, Steven’s life focus is to find him. Hiding Nick in a root cellar on his family’s farm, Steven acts as Nick’s protector and lifeline to the outside world.Īs the war escalates, bonds deepen and the fear of being different falls away. Betrayed by his own father and accused of a crime he didn’t commit, he turns to Steven for help. When the bombing of Pearl Harbor draws the US into World War II, Suki and his family are forced to leave their home for the internment camp at Manzanar. He’s beginning to acknowledge that his feelings for Nick amount to more than friendship. Although his parents don’t approve, he’s found true friends in Nick, Suki, and Ollie, sons of field workers.

Steven Katz is the son of prosperous landowners in rural California. But I was still ready.ĪBOUT ‘BOY UNDERGROUND’: 1941.

Still, I knew that whatever awaited me, there was no backing down now. It brought a shiver that I think the others might have seen if they hadn’t been watching the view. My mother countering with, ‘Unless he dies first.’ My father saying, ‘It’ll make a man out of him.’ Then I remembered the words that came right after. How I hadn’t had much in the way of hardship. How it was rough country up there, and how I didn’t get that yet. They looked big and powerful and unforgiving, and that made me feel small. My stomach jangled with fear at going up there on foot. More like a movie set, or one of those theater plays with a painted backdrop to make it seem as if the stage has the depth of a real outdoors scene. They had always been there, as long as I had been alive, but only as a background for my world. I had my back up against the tailgate, facing the mountains, watching them grow closer as we bumped along. It was cool, just after dawn, and the day was clear but no colour at all. EXCERPT: We bounced along on that rutted dirt road, saying exactly nothing.

Boy Underground by Catherine Ryan Hyde