Toronto.
1973.
Early fall -- a nice sunny day.
A 7 year old girl bored by the books the school librarian would let her check out.
An independent bookstore with offbeat choices.
Tolerant parents.
What did that little girl end up with?
For some reason, the book appealed to me. The dust cover is long gone (although I think it did look like the one in the picture at this link), so I can't tell you if it was colorful enough that it attracted my attention, or if it was something else, such as wanting a book that took place in Canada (a country I was rapidly falling in love with at that point in my life). Other than the influence of the book itself, my most vivid memory of that purchase is that the shop was on the second floor of the building, with the stairs outside....
I was an early reader - teaching myself to read around my third birthday. By the time I was seven, I was both voracious and fast. Unfortunately, the school librarian had very set (limited!) ideas about what a second grader should read; my mother had to give permission for me to read Nancy Drew and the Hardy Boys, as those books were supposedly for grade 3 and up, according to that librarian. I made weekly trips to the library with my parents, but usually worked my way through the dozen books I was allowed on my children's card in three days. Plus, in school, we had to choose from the school library for our free reading time:-(
The day of that trip, I had finished both books my parents had let me bring for the two hour car ride from and back to Buffalo on the trip to Toronto. I think that influenced their decision to let me buy a book with subject matter aimed at slightly older children (the Amazon blurb says ages 9 to 12).... as the two hours back would have been very long if I didn't have something to read ;-) According to my mother, I spent my childhood either reading or asking questions......and two hours in the car with me was better for everyone if my nose was in a book ;-)
Evidently against their better judgement (or so my mother told me later), my parents let me have the book I was determined to take home: A Child in a Prison Camp, by Shizuye Takashima. The basic story was following a Japanese Canadian family during their WW2 internment.
In a nutshell: More than any other book, this one introduced me to the idea of civil rights -- and to the idea that the government isn't always right in what it does....
I didn't realize how much it had influenced me until many years later, when applying for an external college scholarship. I'd very correctly done an outline for the essay about what books had influenced me, skipping Takashima's book in the list, and had started writing the essay, when I realized that I was writing about A Child in a Prison Camp. So I very promptly changed the outline and conclusion to reflect that new idea.
I haven't re-read it in years; I think a part of me is afraid to, in case it isn't the masterpiece I remember..... But that battered copy bought in Toronto sits in a prominent spot in my living room, along with Four Puppies, Make Way for Ducklings and One Morning in Maine, my three other childhood (although much less serious) biggest favorites ;-)