The Three-Year Swim Club, The Untold Story of Maui’s Sugar Ditch Kids and Their Quest for Olympic Glory by Julie Checkoway is the fascinating story of the least likely underdogs becoming world champion swimmers. It is a remarkable history of the Pu’unene Sugar Mill camps on Maui and the people who came to work and live there at time when Wailuku was the center of life on Maui and the island was a little known small town country place.

It was a time of great racism against Japanese-Americans during WWII, yet one scrappy and determined teacher, who didn’t even know how to swim, saw something special in the Japanese camp kids swimming in the ditches and an idea caught fire inside him that never went out for the rest of his life. An unlikely and almost unbelievable story, Checkoway creates a drama filled detailed history of The Three-Year Swim Club that almost feels like reading a myth. A highly recommended read.