Under the Blood Red Sun is a Scott O'Dell Award

Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction

The Scott O'Dell Award for Historical Fiction is an American award established in 1982 to encourage authors to focus on historical fiction. The award was created by Scott O’Dell, author of Island of the Blue Dolphins and 25 other children's books, in hopes of increasing young readers' interest in...

-winning historical novel

Historical fiction

Historical fiction tells a story that is set in the past. That setting is usually real and drawn from history, and often contains actual historical persons, but the principal characters tend to be fictional...

 by Graham Salisbury

Graham Salisbury

Graham Salisbury is an American author. He has written many books including Under the Blood Red Sun, his most famous novel. He lives with his family in Lake Oswego, Oregon....

, published in 1994. It details the life of Tomi, a Japanese-American boy, and his family during World War II

World War II

World War II, or the Second World War , was a global conflict lasting from 1939 to 1945, involving most of the world's nations—including all of the great powers—eventually forming two opposing military alliances: the Allies and the Axis...

, when Americans of Japanese descent were being sent to internment camps

Japanese American internment

Japanese-American internment was the relocation and internment by the United States government in 1942 of approximately 110,000 Japanese Americans and Japanese who lived along the Pacific coast of the United States to camps called "War Relocation Camps," in the wake of Imperial Japan's attack on...

. Tomi lives in Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

, and witnesses the attack on Pearl Harbor

Attack on Pearl Harbor

The attack on Pearl Harbor was a surprise military strike conducted by the Imperial Japanese Navy against the United States naval base at Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, on the morning of December 7, 1941...

. The story centers on the racist persecution of Tomi's family by others, the government's suspicion of the Japanese, and the family's efforts to downplay their Japanese heritage. He is joined by his haole or white friend.