Dear America: Like the Willow Tree

In the Fall of 1918, eleven year-old Lydia Pierce and her fourteen year-old brother, Daniel, find themselves suddenly orphaned by the Spanish flu epidemic. Their grieving uncle takes them from their home in Portland, Maine to be raised in the Shaker community, where they are separated since males and females are not permitted to live together. Lydia, a fiercely independent girl, is forced to adjust to her new life and the restrictions placed upon her all on her own. Piper's father is the pastor for a Japanese Baptist church, and when its members are taken away to Minidoka, Iowa, to be interned, Pastor Davis moves his family to Idaho to be with his congregation. Piper is jealous of her older sister who gets to remain at home and go off to work. Her older brother is in the army, fighting in Europe. She, meanwhile, hates her new life, but soon, through her budding friendship with Betty, a Japanese-American girl her age who is interned in the camp, Piper learns what it means to be a good citizen and a good person.