Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code: A Navajo Code Talker's Story, by Joseph Bruchac, illustrated by Liz Amini-Holmes

 

When Chester Nez was eight years old, he learned that the beliefs, traditions and language of his Navajo culture were forbidden at the boarding school to which he had been sent. At Fort Defiance School in Arizona, Chester lost his Navajo name Betoli, too, along with his long dark hair. This was in 1929, a time when many children were sent from their home reservations to missionary schools intended to prepare them for living in the white man’s culture. But even as he knew he must learn English, pray the Catholic way and understand the world beyond the reservation, Chester nurtured his Navajo roots, renewing his strength and courage when he returned to the reservation on school vacations. Author Joseph Bruchac, in the biographical picture book Chester Nez and the Unbreakable Code: A Navajo Code Talker’s Story, tells the story of Chester Nez, his quiet endurance, and the cohort of Navajo men who signed up to serve as U. S. Marines in World War II. Recruited specifically to create a code that could not be deciphered by the Japanese as war was waged in the Pacific arena, these men succeeded in using Navajo words to create a code that defied translation, helped win the war, and remained a secret until the U. S. military decided to declassify it in 1968. Young readers will understand the irony of a child having his native language erased in school then being asked, as an adult, to contribute to the defense of the country. Readers will also be fascinated by the structure of the secret code, where all the letters of the alphabet received a Navajo word and key words received Navajo equivalents: A = wol-la-chee (Navajo) = ant (English), B = shush (Navajo) = bear (English), etc.; Battleship = lo-tso (Navajo) = whale (English) and Grenade = ni-ma-si (Navajo) = potatoes (English), and so forth. This process is told with engaging immediacy, and illustrations by Liz Amini-Holmes convey the sincerity of Chester’s journey throughout his lifetime. Following World War II, Chester attended college to study commercial art, served in the Korean War, and then worked as a professional painter. In Bruchac’s words: “Despite being told to give up his Navajo language and culture, he found ways to merge them with the white man's world. His spirit stayed unbroken. He kept his feet on the trail of beauty.” In an appended timeline, we learn that, in 1982, August 14 was proclaimed Navajo Code Talkers Day, and that in 2001 the twenty-nine original Navajo Code Talkers received the Congressional Gold Medal of Honor. Ages 7-10. Published by Albert Whitman & Co., 2018.

 

Joseph Bruchac’s Code-Talker: A Novel about the Navajo Marines of World War Two, tells the story of 16-year-old Ned Begay who served along with other young men on the Pacific front. Though fictional, it relates the reality of wartime and the valor of the Navajos who saved American lives through a secret code. Ages 12 up. Chester Nez told his own story, for adults, in Code Talker: The First and Only Memoir by One of the Original Navajo Code Talkers of WWII, with Judith Avila.