The Princess Dolls

Esther Shulman and Michiko Suzuki are nine-year-old best friends in Vancouver, BC, in 1942. They were born on the same day, and their parents became friends over their "twin" babies. They are both in Girl Guides and celebrate their birthday together every February 7th. Mr. Shulman is an editor at the Vancouver Messenger, Mr. Suzuki runs a corner grocery, and the girls' mothers are homemakers.

The novel opens with Michiko (Michi) and her little sister, Akiko, coming to Esther's house to show off Michi's satin "Princess Margaret" cape and to give Esther a similar velvet "Princess Elizabeth" cape, one sewn by Michi and her mother. The girls enjoy a role playing game in which they pretend to be the young British princesses, Elizabeth (the future Queen Elizabeth II) and Margaret Rose.

One January afternoon when the girls and their older brothers are going down Hastings Street to the movies, the girls spot two dolls, a Princess Elizabeth and a Princess Margaret, in a toy shop window. The price, fifteen dollars each, is beyond their parents' means.

The movies had newsreels in those days, and, as well as the latest about the British princess's war work, they see the Japanese army marching through Southeast Asia. On returning home, they stop at the Suzukis' store where a small crowd of children have gathered to look at a cartoon stuck to the door. It shows a vicious-looking Japanese soldier with a sabre dripping blood. A couple of the children's schoolmates laugh at it, and when Michi pulls it down, Florence says that the Japanese are the enemy and that no one cares about a cartoon. Michi tells Esther she will never speak to Florence again.

When their birthday rolls around, it is Esther's family's turn to host the party, with both mothers providing refreshments. When Michiko sees Florence there, she is displeased, and when Esther explains that her mother invited her to reciprocate for a previous invitation, Michiko says "I don't care. I don't want her," and withdraws to the periphery. Florence refuses one of Mrs. Suzuki's tea cakes, whispering that she's not eating any Japanese food.

When Esther opens her present from her Grandmother Sadie, who is visiting from Toronto, she finds the Princess Elizabeth doll - but there is no Princess Margaret doll for Michiko. When the girls gather around Esther to admire the doll, Michiko is crowded out. After giving Esther a "stiff hug" and a thank you for her present, Michi leaves.

When Esther visits Michi to discuss the situation, Michi says she is "not mad about the stupid doll" but refuses to elaborate. The following day, when Esther waits for Michi to walk to school with her, Michi greets her but walks with another Japanese girl, Noriko. Clearly Michiko's experiences at the party worsened her growing feeling of exclusion because of her ancestry. The situation worsens. Esther's father writes an article, headlined: "New Restrictions on Japanese Unjust" and gets in trouble with his boss. Japanese males over eighteen are interned and sent to camps in the BC interior. Esther's continued overtures of friendship to Michiko are rebuffed.

At home, Esther learns that her grandmother's sister and brother-in-law in Germany have not been in touch for a long time. Grandma Sadie is afraid that they, along with many other Jews, have been rounded up to be sent to work camps. In writing about the internment of the Japanese Canadians and the confiscation of their property, an author must face the fact that Nazi Germany was not the only country that sent citizens of certain ethnic and religious groups to camps. It is important not to equate internment with genocide; the internment of Japanese Americans and Canadians was cruel and unjust, but it was not the Holocaust. Author Ellen Schwartz makes this distinction clear when Esther asks if the work camp that her great aunt and uncle may be in is "like where Uncle Ted [Suzuki] is. Her father says, simply, "Worse."

Although the term "Japanese" is used instead of "Japanese Canadians" most of the time in the novel (as it would have been in 1942), the author shows that the people being deprived of their rights were mostly Canadian citizens. Early in the story, when the Suzuki and Shulman children are walking together, they hear someone shout: "Go back to Japan". To that, Jake retorts: "They can't go back; they've never been there." Also, Mr. Shulman deplores the new requirement that the Japanese Canadians have to register as "enemy aliens" even if they were born here.

Esther is horrified at the internment of Japanese women and children, but, by telling Michiko how she feels, she only makes things worse. Her classroom is very empty in the absence of her Japanese-Canadian fellow students. In playing "princesses" with Florence, Esther finds her limited in imagination and conventional as to suitable activities for the princesses. She misses Michiko, but, although Mrs. Shulman sends care packages to Mrs. Suzuki now in a shack near Revelstoke with her children, Michiko never writes to Esther. Eventually, with Grandma Sadie's help, Esther tries again to heal her estrangement from Michiko. Michiko's response shows her talent and affirms their friendship.

While the eight to twelve-year-olds in my family circle, like Esther and Michiko, engage in imaginative dramatizations and play various characters, they don't use dolls as they did when younger. Many girls that age see dolls as collectibles, symbols of glamour or mementoes of childhood, and some readers may find Esther's and Michiko's game unsophisticated and childish.

On the plus side, The Princess Dolls rings true thanks to authentic details, such as the wartime practice of collecting aluminum foil. Schwartz knows her subject; her earlier novel, Heart of a Champion, (Vol. XXII, No. 19, January 19, 2016) is also about the wartime maltreatment of Japanese-Canadians but told through the eyes of two boys. Mariko Ando's black and white drawings are as attractive as Garth Williams's classic illustrations for the “Little House on the Prairie” series and add to the story.