Attacked!: Pearl Harbor and the Day War Came to America

by Marc Favreau

Overview

The true story of Pearl Harbor as you’ve never read it before—action-packed, informative, and told through the eyes of those on all sides of the violence who experienced the terror of the unprecedented attack firsthand.

A single day changed the course of history: December 7, 1941. Nobody in America knew Japan’s attack on Pearl Harbor was coming. Nobody was prepared for the aftermath.
 
Filled with firsthand accounts and photographs, this unflinching, action-packed narrative puts readers on the ground in Pearl Harbor through the real stories of a diverse cast of characters. From the attackers to the attacked, daring rescues to tragic losses, unlikely survival to quick-thinking responses, learn the stories of the men, women, and children who experienced that fateful day and its aftereffects.
 
Perfect for fans of Steven Sheinkin and Deobrah Heiligman, award-winning author Marc Favreau sheds new, compelling light onto a history we think we know, what it means to be American, and the enduring lessons from an event we never saw coming.

* “A jaw-dropping account of Pearl Harbor … artfully conceived and grippingly told.”―Publishers Weekly, starred review

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316592093
Publisher:	Little, Brown Books for Young Readers
Publication date:	06/10/2025
Pages:	272
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x 0.68(d)
Age Range:	10 - 18 Years

About the Author

Marc Favreau is the acclaimed author of Crash: The Great Depression and the Fall and Rise of America and Spies: The Secret Showdown Between America and Russia, co-author (with Michael Eric Dyson) of Unequal: A Story of America and Represent: The Unfinished Fight for the Vote, and co-editor (with Ira Berlin and Steven F. Miller) of Remembering Slavery: African Americans Talk About Their Personal Experiences of Slavery and Emancipation. Favreau is also the director of editorial programs at The New Press. He lives with his family in Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts.

Editorial Reviews

* “A jaw-dropping account of Pearl Harbor … artfully conceived and grippingly told.” —Publishers Weekly, starred review

“An inclusive, expansive take on a pivotal historical moment. [Favreau] accessibly and engagingly shows readers that with Pearl Harbor, the real story is ‘more complicated—and much more interesting, tragic, and heroic—than the simplified version.’”—Kirkus

"Well researched and particularly attentive to offering one person’s viewpoint at a time, giving a sense of immediacy to their individual experiences and intensity to their memories and observations. A very readable book on a topic of perennial interest." —Booklist

Praise for Unequal:
A YALSA-ALA Excellence in Nonfiction for Young Adult Award Finalist
A School Library Journal Best Book of the Year
A New York Public Library Best Book of 2022 

* "Empowering, profound, and necessary, purchase for all collections serving young adults." —School Library Journal, starred review

—SLJ starred review

Praise for Spies:
A New York Times Best Children's Book of 2019

"Marc Favreau's Spies is narrative nonfiction at its finest: insightful, impeccably researched, and, most of all, impossible to put down."

—Deborah Hopkinson, Sibert Honor author of Titanic: Voices from the Disaster

* "Favreau weaves vivid, succinct accounts of the volatile U.S.-Soviet relationship into his tension-inducing spy stories... Black-and-white photos and excellent supplemental material...enhance the reader's understanding of this riveting, timely topic." —Publishers Weekly, starred review

—PW starred review

Praise for Crash:
A New York Public Library Best Book of 2018
A Chicago Public Library Best Book of 2018
A 2018 Booklist Editors' Choice title
A 2019 Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People
An ALA Notable Children's Book of 2019
A Bank Street College Best Children's Book

"Crash does a great job of mixing personal stories with big-picture history, delivering a compelling narrative about the Great Depression—and about how Americans' reaction to it changed our country forever."

—Steve Sheinkin, National Book Award Finalist and Newbery Honor author of Bomb and Most Dangerous

From the Publisher

★ 09/18/2023

In this important work, Favreau (Unequal) employs multiple perspectives to render a jaw-dropping account of Pearl Harbor, which President Franklin D. Roosevelt (1882–1945) called “a date that will live in infamy.” Through immediate and urgent firsthand accounts from American, Japanese, and Native Hawaiian citizens and military leaders, the author revisits the “interesting, tragic, and heroic” actions that occurred on Dec. 7, 1941. Sources include Takeo Yoshikawa (1912–1993), a Japanese spy who—while posing as a diplomat, dishwasher, and tourist—mapped out “every military installation on Oahu”; Kazuo Sakamaki (1918–1999), a Japanese mini-sub operator who became the first WWII POW detained in America; a nine-year-old Hawaiian boy whose family farm bordered Pearl Harbor; and Doris Miller (1919–1943), a Black mess hall attendant on the battleship West Virginia, who was awarded the Navy Cross for heroism. Alongside depictions of communal recovery, Favreau’s balanced and nonpartisan narration renders the toll that the tragedy exacted on Native Hawaiians and the racism that Japanese Americans endured in incarceration camps. It’s an extensively researched telling that is artfully conceived and grippingly told. Timelines and source notes conclude. Ages 10–up. Agent: Tanya McKinnon, McKinnon Literary. (Nov.)

Publishers Weekly

2023-09-09
A fresh account of Pearl Harbor through the eyes of those who experienced it.

The “ ‘official’ story of Pearl Harbor cast a long shadow,” writes Favreau, erasing many other ways the events could have been remembered. Here, he includes American, Native Hawaiian, and Japanese experiences, rounding out readers’ understanding. For example, there are the stories of Black mess attendant Doris Miller, who received a Navy Cross for heroism, only to drown in 1943, when a Japanese torpedo sank his ship; nervous Japanese spy Takeo Yoshikawa, 28; and the Japanese American Watanabe family of Honolulu, who lost their father when he was shot by U.S. fighter planes while working on his fishing boat. The book also includes Japanese perspectives, from Emperor Hirohito to Kazuo Sakamaki, who left Japan for Hawaii on his 18th birthday, knowing, as he put it, that he “was saying good-bye to all things to which a normal person clings.” The multitude of voices straddling national, political, and hierarchical boundaries reveals the tremendous cost to all. Favreau reminds readers that this was a crisis on American soil that, like others, has led to racist responses. His measured tone successfully conveys that in times of tragedy, we must avoid scapegoating. He accessibly and engagingly shows readers that with Pearl Harbor, the real story is “more complicated—and much more interesting, tragic, and heroic—than the simplified version.”

An inclusive, expansive take on a pivotal historical moment. (key figures, timeline, source notes, further reading, index) (Nonfiction. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews