A Child in Prison Camp belongs to the rites-of-passage literary tradition that traces a child's or adolescent's maturation process as he or she experiences and learns from life. Shizuye is only eleven years old when she and her family are uprooted and forced to move to the relocation camp. This experience will shape her life and affect her destiny. For instance, while Shizuye misses hustling, bustling Vancouver life, she loves the natural beauty surrounding the internment camp: the mountains and dark pine trees, the clear lakes and streams, the various seasons, and the ever changing skies. After the war, when she begins to concentrate on her art career, landscapes become one of the themes in her paintings. In addition, the natural beauty makes her aware of her desire to remain in Canada and enables her to transcend the harsh realities of this period in her life...