{"id":15091,"date":"2026-04-21T10:00:00","date_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=15091"},"modified":"2026-04-21T10:09:52","modified_gmt":"2026-04-21T15:09:52","slug":"r-is-history-repeating-barbed-wire-between-us-reverso-poem-by-wenjen-encarnacion-picturebook-a2z","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?p=15091","title":{"rendered":"R is history repeating BARBED WIRE BETWEEN US, reverso poem by Wenjen &amp; Encarnacion (Picturebook) #A2Z"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"wp-block-image\">\n<figure class=\"alignright size-full is-resized\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"714\" height=\"584\" data-attachment-id=\"15201\" data-permalink=\"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/?attachment_id=15201\" data-orig-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/booksyalove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BarbedCover.jpeg?fit=919%2C752&amp;ssl=1\" data-orig-size=\"919,752\" data-comments-opened=\"1\" data-image-meta=\"{&quot;aperture&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;credit&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;camera&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;caption&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;created_timestamp&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;copyright&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;focal_length&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;iso&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;shutter_speed&quot;:&quot;0&quot;,&quot;title&quot;:&quot;&quot;,&quot;orientation&quot;:&quot;0&quot;}\" data-image-title=\"BarbedCover\" data-image-description=\"\" data-image-caption=\"\" data-large-file=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/booksyalove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BarbedCover.jpeg?fit=714%2C584&amp;ssl=1\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/booksyalove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BarbedCover.jpeg?resize=714%2C584&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Two young girls, standing back to back, look at the viewer from behind a barbed wire fence. On the left is a short-haired Japanese-American girl, on the right a Latin American girl with long dark hair held by a patterned headband, on the book cover of Barbed Wire Between Us by Mia Wenjen and Violeta Encarnacion.\" class=\"wp-image-15201\" style=\"width:350px\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/booksyalove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BarbedCover.jpeg?w=919&amp;ssl=1 919w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/booksyalove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BarbedCover.jpeg?resize=201%2C164&amp;ssl=1 201w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/booksyalove.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/04\/BarbedCover.jpeg?resize=150%2C123&amp;ssl=1 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 714px) 100vw, 714px\" \/><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n\n\n<p>Forced from home,<br \/>separated from family,<br \/>children now behind barbed wire!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A Japanese American girl scans the dusty internment camp where everyone in her community has been taken during World War II, hoping for better days when they&#8217;ll finally be able to go home.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Decades later, a Latin American immigrant girl escaping with her family from bad conditions is taken to the same dusty internment camp, her hopes of better days now dimmed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This reverso poem tells the two girls&#8217; different\/similar stories with a single set of phrases, like going up a musical scale and then back down.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;In this land of promise, we hoped to find a place to belong.&#8221; The phrase that begins the first poem ends the second poem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>&#8220;Where darkness is, light will shine again. From behind barbed wire, new life will begin.&#8221; The phrase that starts the second poem is the final line of the first.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Muted colors evoke the dreary setting of the camp, children and parents often separated by barbed wire, far away from pleasant places.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Fort Sill, Oklahoma, has long been a prison camp for those considered different, from Geronimo and his Chiricahua Apaches in the 1880s to Japanese Americans during World War II to immigrant children since 2014.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>What keeps you hopeful in the face of such things?<br \/>**kmm<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p><strong>Book info<\/strong>: Barbed Wire Between Us \/ Mia Wenjen; illustrated by Violeta Encarnacion. Red Comet Press, 2026. [author site <a href=\"https:\/\/miawenjen.com\/barbed-wire-between-us\">https:\/\/miawenjen.com\/barbed-wire-between-us<\/a>\/] [illustrator site <a href=\"https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/violeta.encarnacion\/\">illustrator site https:\/\/www.instagram.com\/<em>violeta.encarnacion<\/em>\/<\/a>] [publisher site <a href=\"https:\/\/www.redcometpress.com\/picturebooks\/barbed\">https:\/\/www.redcometpress.com\/picturebooks\/barbed<\/a>] Review copy and cover image courtesy of the publisher, via Publisher Spotlight.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Forced from home,separated from family,children now behind barbed wire! A Japanese American girl scans the dusty internment camp where everyone in her community has been taken during World War II, hoping for better days when they&#8217;ll finally be able to go home. Decades later, a Latin American immigrant girl escaping with her family from bad [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[47,237,19,50],"tags":[10,90,218,11,5,338,16,18,43,333,71,322,49,292,156,93,193,15,21,35,33,6,53,8,59],"class_list":["post-15091","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-childrens-books","category-diverse-books","category-fiction","category-historical","tag-a2z","tag-abandonment","tag-asian-american","tag-communication","tag-coping","tag-cuban-american","tag-determination","tag-family","tag-growing-up","tag-japanese-american","tag-kidnapping","tag-latinx","tag-memories","tag-oklahoma","tag-picturebook","tag-poetry","tag-prejudice","tag-relationships","tag-self-image","tag-surprises","tag-survival","tag-travel","tag-us-artist","tag-us-author","tag-war"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15091","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15091"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15091\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15207,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15091\/revisions\/15207"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15091"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15091"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/booksyalove.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15091"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}