War of the Eagles

Dave Jenkinson is a professor in the Faculty of Education at the University of Manitoba and the author of the “Portraits” section of Emergency Librarian.

Walters’s string of successful young-adult novels continues with War
of the Eagles, which is set on Kaien Island, British Columbia, from late
1940 through early 1941. The central character is Jed Blackburn, 14,
from Victoria. Jed’s white father is now a fighter pilot stationed in
England. Jed’s Tsimshian mother has returned to her family’s island
village and become a cook at the new army base near Prince Rupert.
During previous summer visits, Jed befriended Tadashi Fukushima, who
lives in a nearby village of Japanese fishermen.

Several plot threads focus on themes of racial identity and prejudice.
Jed, who could pass as white, has been encouraged by his father “not
to get caught up in all that ‘Indian mumbo jumbo.’” However,
Jed’s Kaien Island experiences expose him to discrimination and
ultimately cause him to embrace his Tsimshian heritage. Canadian-born
Tadashi has already experienced racism’s sting in the form of the
barring of Asians from Canadian medical schools. Japan’s attack on
Pearl Harbor causes everyone in Tadashi’s village to be declared
“enemy aliens” and to be evacuated, their property seized. A wounded
eagle, tethered in the army camp, symbolically links the boys. Tsimshian
beliefs hold that a deceased good person returns to earth in the form of
a forest creature. Jed’s maternal grandmother believes that the eagle
contains the spirit of his beloved grandfather. When the eagle appears
to be zoo-bound, the boys agree to either liberate or kill it; as
Tadashi says, “That’s no way to live, all caged up.”

As good historical fiction should, War of the Eagles tells an engaging
story while informing readers about the past. Highly recommended.