 Popsugar Reading Challenge category: A book set 24 years before your birth.
Code Talker, by Chester Nez with Judith Schiess Avila. I had an easy time with this category. If you can't find a good book set during World War 2, you aren't trying. The memoir covers Nez's whole life, not just the WW2 years, but that's the focus. Nez grew up herding sheep on the reservation in New Mexico, and like many Native children, he was forced to go to a boarding school where English and Christianity were mandatory. The boys defiantly spoke Navajo in secret - and their perfect fluency in two languages was what made the code possible. The code itself had a simple concept, but was kept safe by the fact that pretty much nobody outside the Navajo Nation spoke the language. It was declassified in the 60s, and is included i the book. Each English letter was represented by one to three Navajo words that started with the at letter in English; for instance, the letter "A" became the Navajo word for apple, axe, or ant; a code talker might use them interchangeably in the same word. Important words also had Navajo code terms (eg, the Navajo word for potato meant hand grenade.) The Japanese eventually learned there was a Navajo connection to the code, and they tried but never succeeded in capturing a code talker. Nez doesn't hold back on describing the horrors of war in the Pacific. The code talkers were there in the foxholes, exchanging messages on trop movements and trying to stay alive. Nez describes what sounds like PTSD after his discharge, and he used traditional healing and rituals to find his way back. Despite a difficult start in life and some traumatic experiences in the war, Nez comes across as optimistic, proud of his country and what he did to help preserve it.
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