Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code: A Navajo Code Talker's Story

by Joseph Bruchac, Liz Amini-Holmes (Illustrator)

Overview

A Junior Library Guild Selection April 2018
2018 Cybils Award Finalist, Elementary Non-Fiction
BRLA 2018 Southwest Book Award
2019 Southwest Books of the Year: Kid Pick
2020 Grand Canyon Award, Nonfiction Nominee
2020-2021 Arkansas Diamond Primary Book Award Master List

STARRED REVIEW! "A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages. A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages."—Kirkus Reviews starred review

Chester Nez was a boy told to give up his Navajo roots. He became a man who used his native language to help America win World War II.

As a young Navajo boy, Chester Nez had to leave the reservation and attend boarding school, where he was taught that his native language and culture were useless. But Chester refused to give up his heritage. Years later, during World War II, Chester—and other Navajo men like him—was recruited by the US Marines to use the Navajo language to create an unbreakable military code. Suddenly the language he had been told to forget was needed to fight a war.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780807500088
Publisher:	Whitman, Albert & Company
Publication date:	04/03/2018
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	32
Sales rank:	564,949
File size:	9 MB
Age Range:	7 - 10 Years

About the Author

Joseph Bruchac is a writer and storyteller who often draws on his Native American (Abenaki) ancestry. Joseph is the author of over 130 books for young readers and adults, including Code Talker: A Novel About the Navajo Marines of World War Two. He holds a bachelor's degree from Cornell University, a master's degree from Syracuse, and a PhD from the Union Institute. He lives in New York.

Liz Amini-Holmes holds a bachelor's of fine arts degree in illustration from the Academy of Art University and the University of San Francisco. She has illustrated other books for children including Fatty Legs, Miracle, and A Stranger at Home. She lives in California.

Editorial Reviews

05/07/2018
Bruchac begins this powerful story of Chester Nez (born Betoli) as he is taken by missionaries from the Navajo reservation to boarding school: “Chester knew he might need to live in the white man’s world one day. In that world speaking English was essential, so he worked hard and did well.” In 1942, Marine Corps recruiters seek speakers of English and Navajo; Bruchac clearly explains the need for a code that could not be broken by the Japanese, while lightly underscoring the irony of Chester’s circumstances: “Suddenly the language he had been told to forget was important.” Bruchac movingly draws a parallel between the trauma of indigenous boarding schools and war. Amini-Holmes’s paintings capture the nightmarish atmosphere of both: at school, Nez’s terror is embodied by red-eyed crows that fly away with locks of his sheared hair, while in his postwar dreams, birds morph into sharks resembling dive bombers. Back matter explores the recognition that code talkers received years after their service, and includes a portion of the Navajo code. Ages 7–9. (Apr.)

Publishers Weekly

A Junior Library Guild Selection April 2018
2018 Cybils Award Finalist, Elementary Non-Fiction
BRLA 2018 Southwest Book Award
2019 Southwest Books of the Year: Kid Pick
2020 Grand Canyon Award, Nonfiction Nominee
2020-2021 Arkansas Diamond Primary Book Award Master List

STARRED REVIEW! "A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages. A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages."—Kirkus Reviews starred review


"Bruchac distills his extensive knowledge about the Navajo code talkers in this complex biography for young readers."—Booklist


"A can't-miss picture book biography."—School Library Journal


"Bruchac movingly draws a parallel between the trauma of indigenous boarding schools and war. Amini-Holmes's paintings capture the nightmarish atmosphere of both."—Publishers Weekly

From the Publisher

05/01/2018
Gr 2–5—Bruchac has penned a moving portrait of Chester Nez, a Navajo code talker who survived the residential school system and World War II. The narrative opens in 1929, with an eight-year-old Betoli being forced into a missionary's truck and given the name Chester. Even though he was told to only speak English in order to "live in the white man's world," he decided to never forget his language and his people. Once he graduated, he joined the U.S. Marine Corps and was placed in platoon number 382, the group who created the only unbreakable code during the Second World War. Told in chronological segments (e.g., "December 1941: Month of Crusted Snow"), the work explores how closely the trauma of the residential school system and of fighting in war resemble each other. Amini-Holmes's illustrations are visceral in their depiction of pain; however, these moments are offset by more joyful scenes of Nez with family and his fellow code talkers and of him living "the Right Way." ("But what he felt best about…able to live the Right Way as a Navajo, holding on to his language and traditions despite being told in school to give up his culture.") Back matter includes an author's note and a portion of the Navajo code. VERDICT A can't-miss picture book biography.—Amanda C. Buschmann, Carroll Elementary School, Houston

School Library Journal

★ 2018-02-13
For young readers, a nuanced, compassionate biography of a Navajo Code Talker.Like many Native American children, Betoli, a Navajo boy, was taken from his family to a missionary boarding school, where he was forbidden to speak Navajo and forced to change his name to Chester. He endured the painful process of having his long hair shaved, forlornly depicted in a stark image in which black crows with outspread wings carry away the strips of his hair. Summers spent at home, immersed once again in the love, language, and culture of his people, gave him the strength to carry on. As he got older, Chester adapted as best he could to the forced assimilation. He joined the military during World War II and became one of the first Code Talkers, who used their own language to undermine the Japanese, efforts that helped to end the war. Bruchac's story dares to go beyond the war in highlighting the postwar trauma that Chester experienced, demonstrated in a beautiful yet haunting illustration that symbolically captures his pain. This tale of a real-life Code Talker humanizes the main character by giving readers the whole picture of his connectedness to home and family, which is reinforced in Amini-Holmes' textured paintings, which resonate on an almost ethereal level.A perfect, well-rounded historical story that will engage readers of all ages. (author's note, partial code key, timeline) (Picture book/biography. 6-10)

Kirkus Reviews