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Summary: Teenager sees life as a POW
Review: As a young teenager in a Japanese POW camp in the Philippines, Teedie Cowie Woodcock created a remarkable series of cartoon sketches of camp life. Drawn on thin tissue paper, discolored by age, the cartoons have been magnificently restored and show prison life through the eyes of a child.No one is spared the clarity of her pen - from those who hoarded food, those who sought special considerations, or those who were camp leaders - all are portrayed without guile in simple line drawings that leave the reader begging for more. As the war raged across the Pacific, the internees treatment slowly worsened, each change captured on paper. The optimism of the early months faded as the Japanese began a deliberate policy to starve the internees to death. Like the military men who suffered the horrors of the Bataan Death March and similar atrocities, the civilians hopes changed to despair, the altering moods captured in these wonderful drawings. Still, hope never died. Teedie cleverly intersperses characters - children determined to carry on a normal life in the camp school, children exhibiting the insouciance of youth, adults attempting to "make do" without the necessities of life - scanning the skies everyday, looking for the American rescue planes. As an historian, I find Teedie's book a wonderful gift to America and perfect companion for the student of history.
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Summary: A WWII Collector's Item
Review: These cartoons, created sixty years ago in the civilian prison camp at Santo Tomas, Manila, in the Philippines, were drawn on scraps of poor quality paper by a talented teenage girl as a gift to lift her mother's spirits Christmas 1944. It was in this final year of imprisonment that food rations dropped below 700 calories a day. Weight loss was severe. Most males lost nearly 60 pounds, some lost over 100 pounds. Women fared only slightly better. Deaths from malnutrition related diseases and from actual starvation were occurring almost every day in the final months before liberation of the Camp. Yet this youngster found the spirit to sketch these approximately 130 cartoons of day-to-day Camp life. Each conveys its own brand of humor -- a truly remarkable collection telling only the bright side of this little known and tragic event from the Pacific Theater during WWII. An interesting aspect of the collection is the fact that each of these cartoons had to be computer restored to remove mildew stains, crease lines, and smudges -- a striking demonstration of what can be done to restore old family documents. William Rowan, Greensboro, NC.
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