Holm is a freelance writer with speculative fiction and nonfiction publications. In this essay, Holm looks at how Senoh captures the insidious effects of war in a young boy's daily life.

For those of us in a country that has never seen traditional warfare on its soil, it can be difficult to imagine the day-to-day realities of living in a nation under attack. Even news coverage cannot come close to capturing the insidious ways that war can affect individual lives. Kappa Senoh's fictionalized autobiography, A Boy Called H: A Childhood in Wartime Japan, does a fantastic job of capturing the process of war and its increasing presence in the life of H and others. The book's precocious protagonist does not flinch from making his views about war known to the reader, even though H feels he must keep his opinions to himself in many public situations.

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