40 Fun Facts About Dash by Kirby Larson

In Kirby Larson's Dash, which elderly neighbor takes in Mitsi's dog when the Kashinos are sent away?

Mrs. Bowker first meets Mitsi by rescuing her from bullies, and she agrees to foster Dash once the family learns the camps forbid animals.

In Dash, what ironic nickname belongs to the fairgrounds site where the Kashino family is first held?

Camp Harmony was a temporary assembly center where each barracks room had one small window, a single electrical socket and a wood stove.

After their stay at the fairgrounds in Dash, the Kashino family is moved to which permanent camp?

Minidoka held more than 13,000 Japanese Americans during the war, and most families from the fairgrounds reached it after a 30-hour train trip.

Which two best friends snub Mitsi Kashino at school after Pearl Harbor in Kirby Larson's Dash?

Mags and Judy let a taunting classmate come between them and Mitsi, which leaves Dash as her one steadfast ally.

Kirby Larson's Dash follows the Kashinos from Washington to a high-desert camp in which other state?

Idaho held the family's second camp on the remote Snake River Plain, a dusty journey from the fairgrounds where they were first confined.

How does Kirby Larson's Dash end for Mitsi Kashino and the dog she had to leave behind?

They are reunited by the final pages; the judges who honored the book wrote that any other ending would be a disservice to its readers.

Before the camps, Mitsi Kashino and her family live in which West Coast city in Dash?

Seattle is the Kashinos' home, and it is also where the author grew up without hearing about the incarceration until she reached college.

In Dash, what does a stranger grab to drive off the boys bullying Mitsi Kashino on her walk home?

A broom is the weapon of the woman who later fosters Dash; a grateful Mitsi thanks her with a drawing, and the two become fast friends.

In Dash, Mitsi's grandmother keeps repeating the Japanese phrase Shikata ga nai, which means what?

It cannot be helped is the saying Mitsi grows tired of hearing while the family packs; the memoir Farewell to Manzanar devotes a whole chapter to the idea.

Kirby Larson based Dash on a real family's wartime pet, a dog with which name?

Chubby had to stay behind when his owner was incarcerated in 1942, and her written request to the Army to bring him along was denied.

In Dash, which bubbly girl becomes Mitsi Kashino's close friend inside the fairgrounds camp?

Debbie is cheerful but suffers mysterious low spells, and the publisher's guide sets her loyalty against the classmates who dropped Mitsi.

Kirby Larson's Dash won which 2015 prize given to historical fiction for young readers?

The Scott O'Dell Award judges praised how the book kept the pleasures of a school, family and dog story while honestly showing wartime prejudice.

Dash is a companion to which earlier novel about a boy who loans his pet to the wartime Army?

Duke follows eleven-year-old Hobie Hanson, who donates his dog to the Dogs for Defense program and regrets it almost at once.

Mitsi Kashino is in which school grade when Kirby Larson's Dash opens in early 1942?

Fifth grade turns hostile for the eleven-year-old, who meets nasty notes and racial slurs from her own classmates.

In Dash, which treasured possession does Mitsi Kashino give away to her closest friend in camp?

Her locket goes to the girl she befriends behind the fence, a bond unlike the school friendships that crumbled after Pearl Harbor.

Which Japanese word does Mitsi Kashino use for her grandmother throughout Kirby Larson's Dash?

Obaachan must be fingerprinted after Pearl Harbor, one of the first signs of how the war reaches into the Kashino home.

In Dash, which brother worries Mitsi Kashino by going along with a group of boys in camp?

Ted drifts toward the other camp boys, one sign of how crowded quarters and endless lines begin to unravel the close Kashino family.

In Dash, which classmate comes between Mitsi Kashino and her two oldest friends after Pearl Harbor?

Patty hurls a racial slur at Mitsi, and the scapegoating at school is only the first hardship the Kashino family meets in 1942.

The first camp in Kirby Larson's Dash was a real one built on the fairgrounds of which Washington town?

Puyallup nearly doubled in population when about 7,390 people were confined there, some in an area that took in the racetrack and grandstand.

In Dash, the elderly neighbor who fosters Mitsi's dog says she used to live in which state?

Montana is where she watched a family of friends get run out of town during the First World War, a silence she has regretted ever since.

In Dash, Mitsi's rescuer regrets her World War I silence when friends of which heritage were run out of town?

German families were hounded out amid the hysteria of that war, and standing by Mitsi is the older woman's way of atoning.

In Dash, Mitsi Kashino thanks the woman who chased off the bullies with a drawing of what?

Her garden is the subject, and the gift turns a frightening afternoon into a fast friendship between the girl and the older woman.

In Dash, what keepsake of Mitsi and her dog arrives by mail and gets shown all around camp?

A photograph taken on the last day before the family left home overjoys Mitsi, and showing it off helps her talk to people in camp.

In Dash, repeated trips to which camp building help Mitsi Kashino get over her shyness with strangers?

The post office is where the letters signed by Dash arrive, so Mitsi keeps going back and slowly opens up to the people she meets.

Kirby Larson's Dash opens as Mitsi Kashino heads back to school after which holiday break?

Christmas vacation ends only weeks after the bombing of Pearl Harbor, and Mitsi's hope that school will feel normal again is quickly dashed.

Which real-life camp artist appears as a character in Kirby Larson's novel Dash?

Eddie Sato is the kind of real historical figure that led Kirkus, in a starred review, to call the novel educational as well as heartwarming.

In Dash, the boys who chase Mitsi Kashino kick a pile of schoolbooks and which new possession into the mud?

A sketch pad matters because art is Mitsi's gift, and behind the fence it becomes one of the ways she copes with camp life.

In Dash, what happens to Mitsi Kashino's father in the weeks after the attack on Pearl Harbor?

He loses his job as suspicion falls on Japanese Americans, and soon the family must give up their home and most of what they own.

Which publisher released Kirby Larson's Dash in 2014 and later asked her for more wartime dog novels?

Scholastic Press saw such a warm response to the author's first two dog stories that it asked her to write two more.

Kirby Larson, author of Dash, earned a Newbery Honor in 2007 for which homesteading novel?

Hattie Big Sky follows a sixteen-year-old orphan, tired of being shuttled between relatives, who inherits her uncle's land and goes to work it.

In the author's note to Dash, Kirby Larson credits which David Neiwert book for the true story?

Strawberry Days is where the author first met the real girl-and-dog story, while hunting for true wartime tales for an earlier book.

In real life, the neighbor who inspired Kirby Larson's Dash wrote in the dog's voice in what form?

A diary of the dog's life became letters in the novel; the real owner kept it until she died, and it was found in her nightstand.

Kirby Larson made Mitsi Kashino eleven in Dash, but the real dog owner was what when she was incarcerated?

An adult of about thirty, she was born in 1912 and had been her high school's valedictorian; the author made her a child to suit young readers.

The removal the Kashino family suffers in Dash began with Executive Order 9066, signed by which president?

Franklin Roosevelt signed it on February 19, 1942, a date now marked each year as a Day of Remembrance for the incarceration.

Which president signed the 1988 law apologizing for wartime camps like those in Kirby Larson's Dash?

Ronald Reagan signed the Civil Liberties Act, which admitted the removal was driven by racial prejudice and paid each surviving internee $20,000.

Kirby Larson launched Dash at a memorial in which Washington community, the first one removed in 1942?

Bainbridge Island lost 227 Japanese American residents, who got six days' notice and left by ferry; the memorial stands at that old dock.

In Dash, Mitsi Kashino writes to which Army general, begging to bring her dog to camp?

General John DeWitt ran the Western Defense Command, and in the novel he sends Mitsi a curt reply that animals are barred and war asks a price of everyone.

Before Dash, Kirby Larson explored the wartime camps in The Fences Between Us, a volume in which series?

Dear America's The Fences Between Us gave her a head start on one camp's history, so it was the fairgrounds camp that took the extra digging.

The real Mitsi behind Kirby Larson's Dash held legal title to what, because her immigrant parents could not?

A farm was in her name because the law of the day barred her Japan-born parents from owning land in the United States.

For Dash, Kirby Larson drew on which organization that preserves the stories of incarcerated Japanese Americans?

Densho's archive was one stop in research that also took in university collections, camp newsletters and interviews with people who had lived in the camps.