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Ken Mochizuki is the author of the picture books Be Water, My Friend:  The Early Years of Bruce Lee (reviewed here),  Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story (reviewed here), Baseball Saved Us (reviewed here), Heroes, and the young adult novel Beacon Hill Boys.  Having spent the past few days with Ken Mochizuki and his books, it is safe to say that I find him, his books, and his subject matter fascinating.  I have loved every minute pouring over his books and I am astounded with the wonderful interview that he has shared with us today.  So please welcome Ken Mochizuki to the Maw Books Blog!

Maw Books:  Welcome Ken!  First, would you take just a moment to briefly introduce yourself?

Ken Mochizuki: I was born in Seattle, Wash. My parents were also born there. My grandparents were from Japan, immigrating to America around the beginning of the last century. I have never been to Japan (yet), and I don’t know the Japanese language, except for a few words more than most Americans know. My grandparents spoke only Japanese (except a grandmother did speak fairly fluent English – a rarity for that generation), and my parents spoke English since they were Americans born in this country. They only spoke in Japanese to their parents and only in English to us kids – except when they got mad at us. Then those Japanese words started slipping out.

I have been complimented on my ability to speak English, even though it is the only language I know. I have been asked, “Where are you from?” When I answer “Seattle,” I am then asked, “But where are you really from?” Total strangers who I have not antagonized in any way have yelled at me to “Go back to where you came from!”

The closest thing to a martial art I know is European foil fencing. I am not that short (5’8”). Math was always my worst subject in school – history/social studies, English/language arts were my best. I am not a computer nerd. I am not a slow and lousy driver of a car. When I go on vacation, I am not wearing five cameras around my neck and a video cam on my shoulder.

(Okay, that wasn’t very brief.)

Maw Books:  Brief or no, very interesting stuff!  I love the background  you’ve given us.  I remember when we were looking to purchase our new home, the owner told us that the neighbors were Vietnamese.  It wasn’t so much the fact that he mentioned it, but the way he said it.  As if it made a tangible difference to us.  Afterwards, I discussed this with my husband (who is half-Chinese with full Asian extended family) because it bothered me.  If the neighbors were white, I doubt they would have mentioned it.  Later, when my mother-in-law visited, she met these Vietnamese neighbors who asked where she was from.  “Hawaii” she responded.  “No, where are you really from?” they asked.  “Hawaii and my parents from Hawaii also.”  What it boiled down to is that they wanted to know where she was really from.  They weren’t satisfied until China was the answer.  That experience taught me that it doesn’t matter if it’s coming from those who are white, black, Asian, or Hispanic.  Everybody tends to want to know where people, particularly minorities, are “really” from.  So to boil this actually down to a question, most of your books are about the Asian American experience and countering the stereotypes that many people have about those from Asian descent.  How has your own family and personal history influenced you to tackle these subjects?

Ken Mochizuki: I can’t speak for my family, particularly my parents and their siblings, but they did experience the Japanese American incarceration during World War II and living in Seattle immediately after the war, so they must have experienced their share of the stereotypes and prejudice. As you can tell by my introduction, I have been the recipient of stereotypes about Asians most of my life, so that has had a major impact on the career paths that I have chosen and what I did within those careers. In the Hollywood entertainment industry and in acting, there was a constant battle with the stereotypes and I fought for the portrayals of Asians (especially Asian men) as more human. Same as a journalist – I fought for accurate portrayals and aspects of the Asian American experience that were not receiving coverage. So, the same now as a writer of books for young readers. My life’s work will probably involve making the American experiences of those of Asian descent known. This, of course, is especially important for young readers as they are forming perceptions of others. Then maybe they will rely less on stereotypes because they will know of stories they would not have read anywhere else.

Maw Books:  Knowing that the Asian-American experience is a recurring theme in your work why did you choose the particularly subjects that you did, i.e: Bruce Lee, internment camps, Vietnam War, etc. over other stories regarding Asian-Americans that could have been told?

Ken Mochizuki: The subjects selected to become books was just a matter of what would be a workable story at the time. Definitely, there are a lot more stories to be told. Combining the fact-based story of playing baseball, and that it was played in the World War II camps, seemed a natural to become “Baseball Saved Us.” “Heroes” was based in the Vietnam War –era since Asians being the wartime enemy was playing itself all over again. “Passage to Freedom: the Sughihara Story” was a matter of being in the right place at the right time, and I especially thought the story of a Japanese diplomat saving thousands of lives would be a good counter to usual stereotypes of the Japanese people. When I discovered and researched the intellectual, philosophical and spiritual Bruce Lee, I knew that was a story to be told. With “Beacon Hill Boys,” Asian American teenagers trying to act African American and searching for their own identity during the early ‘70s is out of my own experience.

Maw Books:  I have yet to read both Heroes and Beacon Hill Boys.  I’m going to seek both of these out.  What about young fictional heroes appeals to you as a writer?

Ken Mochizuki: I think their discovery of some aspect of themselves that they didn’t realize they possessed before, and how they convert that realization into something positive for themselves and for others. A good example is the young protagonist in “Baseball Saved Us” who didn’t think he had the power to hit home runs until he discovered mind over matter, that attitude determines altitude.

Maw Books:  In your book Baseball Saved Us, you use the word “Jap,” which is obviously being used in such a way that the reader knows it’s meant to be hurtful and is a bad name.  What is your reaction to the book being removed from a elementary school in New Milford, Connecticut?

Ken Mochizuki: I was initially baffled since, for the 13 years “Baseball Saved Us” had been used in schools around the country up until that time (2006), I had never heard any objection to the use of that word from librarians, teachers or parents within a school. The reason why, as you said, is because of the context the word is used in. For 13 years, teachers and school librarians obviously knew how to, and had the skills, to explain that word and what it means to their students. For the school board at New Milford, Conn. to cave in to the objection of one parent obviously shows that this school board had little faith in – or doubted – the ability of the district’s teachers and school librarians.

Maw Books:  Do your parents share their experiences with you about being sent to an internment camp during World War II?  How strong was their influence in your writing Baseball Saved Us?

Ken Mochizuki: To get my parents to talk about that experience is like pulling teeth. Rarely have they ever talked to me about that subject, although they have begun to share a little more within the past 10 years. “Baseball Saved Us” drew more on my own years as a journalist covering that subject – random stories told by those who were there, in particular – before writing the story.

Maw Books:  How interesting!  What drew you to the story that lead you to write Passage to Freedom?  What was it like to work with Hiroki Sugihara and to document his amazing family story?

Ken Mochizuki: During fall of 1994, Hiroki Sugihara, along with his mother, Yukiko, began touring their photo exhibit around the country called “Visas for Life.” They wished to make known the story of their father/husband, diplomat Chiune Sugihara. My editor at Lee & Low Books and I looked into this story, but how do we make it a children’s picture when subjects included Nazis, genocide, the Holocaust? When we came upon oldest son Hiroki telling this story as a five year old during the time, we knew we had the vehicle for a children’s book. When Hiroki came to a synagogue in Seattle to speak about his father’s exploits, he placed most of my research into my hands, his mother’s memoir, also titled “Visas for Life” which he self-published. And since Hiroki lived in San Francisco (he has since passed away), I was also able to interview him by phone.

I would say that this was the easiest book for me to research and write. Hiroki provided me with most of the research, and I just had to follow the facts in a story better than any fiction anyone could create. The reason I took it on also became obvious during a presentation about this book at Omaha, Neb. When a local educator told a school superintendent about this story, he replied: “I didn’t know the Japanese did anything good during World War II.”

Maw Books:  Amazing.  I loved Hiroki’s story.  What is it that you love the most about Bruce Lee?

Ken Mochizuki: That he was a voracious reader from young child through adult; that, as an adult, he always carried a book with him wherever he went and read anywhere and anytime he could. He was an educated and highly-disciplined man to become what he became, and there was a lot more to him than just the super-human fighting machine seen on the screen.

Maw Books:  You have collaborated with Dom Lee for all of your picture books.  What is the relationship between the writer and an illustrator, particularly your relationship with Dom Lee?

Ken Mochizuki: I didn’t know this for a good five years or more, but Lee & Low Books Publisher Philip Lee confirmed it when I heard him speak on a panel: He purposely kept Dom and I separate and not communicating with each other – as he did for all author/illustrator duos – so that the author would not influence the illustrator in any way, so that the illustrator would read the manuscript and totally execute his/her own interpretation of it.

I hadn’t communicated with Dom Lee in any way until we met a year after the publication of “Baseball Saved Us” at an educators’ conference in West Lafayette, Ind. There, we discussed “Heroes” before he began his work. At the same conference at the same place two years later, we had preliminary discussions on “Passage to Freedom.” It was a huge advantage for us to talk before he started drawing, even though I didn’t try to influence him in any way since I knew whatever he did would be good and what I had also envisioned. For us, we developed a communicative shorthand, could read each other’s mind, much like the way film directors often use the same cinematographer.

Maw Books:  How has working as a journalist and an actor influenced you as a children’s writer?

Ken Mochizuki:  Being a print journalist served as excellent training for becoming a children’s book writer, especially for picture books, since all require knowing how to say the most with the least amount of words. An actor studies human behavior, motivation – why do people do what they do? That comes into use when creating characters and their actions. Actors also have to be open-minded to deal with a variety of and unusual concepts (and other actors!) and that also aids in children’s book writing.

Maw Books:  What do you want your readers to come away with after reading one of your books?

Ken Mochizuki: They can interpret them any way they want, but, hopefully, they will come away with something they hadn’t known or realized before, and that they will gain traction with a positive theme such as attitude determines altitude (“Baseball”), the importance of passing down a family legacy (“Heroes”), that one person can make a difference, sometimes even a global one (“Passage to Freedom”), the importance of something in one’s own past to make oneself proud (“Beacon Hill Boys”), or might is not always right (Bruce Lee).

Maw Books:  Do you have a particular favorite among your books or one that you are most proud of?  Or is that like trying to pick among your children?

Ken Mochizuki:  That’s it! I am often asked by students what is my favorite of my books. I ask them if they have brothers or sisters. And what would their parents say if they were asked, “Out of all of us, who do you like the best?” They usually say something to the effect that the answer would be, “We love you all the same.” (Some say they would be picked the best!) The same with my books — they’re like my children: I gave birth to them, I raised them, I gave them the best I could and then I sent them out into the world hoping others would appreciate them. I add that I like different books for different reasons: the kinetic “Baseball,” “Heroes” with the most implicit themes even though it is the shortest (in terms of word count) of my books, the epic “Passage to Freedom” with its cast of hundreds, “Beacon Hill Boys” evoking a recent decade as history instead of nostalgia, Bruce Lee discovering his life’s philosophy in “Be Water, My Friend.”

Maw Books:  As an actor and journalist what inspired you to begin writing children’s books and how have those vocations influenced your writing?

Ken Mochizuki: A little history to answer this question: It was because of a classic case of serendipity. Up till 1991, my aspiration was to become a writer of adult novels. That year, I received a phone call from a Philip Lee in New York. He got my name from his wife, (the late children’s book writer) Karen Chinn, whom I knew from working on the same newspaper in Seattle. Philip said he had started the children’s picture book company, Lee & Low Books, and was searching the country for authors and illustrators for its first published books. I had never written anything for children or young adults, but then Philip suggested the topic that became my first picture book, “Baseball Saved Us.” The critical and commercial success of that book launched me into a now 16-year career.

I am asked if I like children’s picture books. My answer: I do now! Not only did the medium give me a new career, but also because it is a unique art form that weds my previous careers. As an actor, one of my aspirations was to become a film director. Watching directors at work, and later being one of the directors of a short dramatic film (“Beacon Hill Boys” film version) myself, and combining that with the appreciation of writing acquired through journalism, I think of picture books as my own little movies, since both are a visual medium. As director/screenwriter, I have to create something that my cinematographer can visualize.

I had the opportunity to utilize careers past and present when I wrote the “book” (everything not music and music lyrics) for a stage musical version of “Baseball Saved Us” first produced by Seattle’s 5th AvenueTheatre in 2003.

Maw Books:  What are the challenges of being a children’s book writer?

Ken Mochizuki:  Keeping the word count down!  I have never had not enough – always too much! People sometimes say to me: “Isn’t writing children’s books easy? Simple story, simple words … after all, it’s for children.” My response: “You try it, getting the story’s beginning, middle, end, conflict, character arc, resolution into 1,000 words or less, which is about five double-spaced pages. Then tell me if it’s easy.”

Maw Books:  What are some of your favorite experiences so far from book signings, school visits, interviews, and other promotional activities for your books?

Ken Mochizuki: Within the past 16 years, I have been invited to cities and towns around the United States and even in Germany once. Just the fact that I have been able to do that would be a “favorite experience.” Particularly rewarding for me is when a student or teacher tells me that one of my books has positively affected their lives. Another is when students at a school are thoroughly prepared for my visit and ask very adult questions. A memorable experience would be reading “Passage to Freedom” at the huge auditorium at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial in Washington, D.C. In Houston, Tex., while presenting at a private school there, I met a “Sugihara survivor.” She was three years old at the time when Sugihara issued her family the visa to escape from Lithuania, and she showed me the actual visa with Sugihara’s fountain-pen writing on it!

Maw Books:  Describe yourself as a reader. What books influenced and inspired you as a child? As an adult?

Ken Mochizuki: I would have to admit that the most influential book as a child was the set of World Book Encyclopedias at home. I ask students if they have done this: while flipping through the pages looking up a particular subject in the encyclopedia, they come upon and start reading other interesting subjects and eventually forget what they were looking up in the first place. With this ability to browse, encyclopedias in book form have the advantage over computer-based encyclopedias. I did a lot of that, fueling my interest in history – especially military history – and science, particularly astronomy and meteorology. My mother admonished that I should be reading more fiction.

However, not only my favorite books, but I think a couple of the greatest stories ever are “A Christmas Carol” and “The Wizard of Oz.” And as I ask students: the bulk of both stories take place in what state of mind? Answer: a dream. As an adult, I have been greatly influenced by the works of John Steinbeck – although I didn’t know it at the time when I read his books decades ago. I have particular admiration for authors who can not only tell a great story, but also are the social critics of their time. “The Grapes of Wrath” is not only a great story, but it also brought attention to the plight of the Okies. The greatest of them all in this category is “A Christmas Carol” when Dickens not only told a brilliant story, but also criticized the English aristocracy of the time. With these types of books as models, one of my own criteria is that my books address a social issue.

Maw Books:  What’s the last book you finished and what’s on your nightstand right now?

Ken Mochizuki: The last book I finished was “Dear Miss Breed” by Joanne Oppenheim, which is about a San Diego librarian who assisted Japanese Americans incarcerated during World War II via the mail. Up next is “Looking Like the Enemy: My Story of Imprisonment in Japanese-American Internment Camps.” It’s not a children’s or YA book, but I need to read it for my own research – I am interviewing the author, Mary Matsuda Gruenewald, at a public forum next month. Yes, still working as a journalist, as I think I will always be in some capacity. It’s ironic that I have made a career out of the worst episode in my parents’ generation (the World War II incarceration experience). There are a ton of children’s and YA books that I want to and should read. And I want to get around to re-reading a couple of great books: An Na’s “A Step From Heaven” and Sherman Alexie’s “The Absolutely True Diary of a Part-Time Indian.”

Maw Books:  This is a question that I ask of every single author I interview.  And that is to share with us a recipe, whether it appears in their books or just a personal favorite.  I later try to make these recipes and highlight them again on my blog.  Do you have a special dish or recipe that you would like to share?  And why this recipe?

Ken Mochizuki: Not anything that I would serve to anyone else.

Maw Books:  Ha, ha!  So, what do you do outside the world of books?

Ken Mochizuki: As noted above, I still do free-lance journalism work, am a fan of anything that tells a good story such as movies and some of the ‘60s pop music; I am an oldies and jazz freak, and I am a regular jogger – that’s when I get some of my writing ideas, when the (right?) side of my brain is occupied.

Maw Books:  I understand that you are currently working on a YA novel, set during the incarceration of Japanese Americans in American camps during World War II.  Can you share with us more about this and when we can expect to see it out?

Ken Mochizuki: Oops! I should have followed the advice of author Tom Wolfe: that to publicly announce a book that hasn’t been published yet is like announcing a duel – then you have to show up. I’ve made it a policy now not to talk about any book unless a contract is signed and it’s for sure. I will say this, though: the book publishing industry is suffering like all American businesses in our current economy, and nothing is certain.

Maw Books:  Anything else you’d like to add?

Ken Mochizuki: Interviews are always more fun and exciting when the interviewer has done the research and asks specific questions. You obviously did! What will give me an attitude for the rest of an interview is when the first question is: “So, what are your books about?”

So, thanks for a worthwhile interview!

Maw Books:  Aw, shucks Ken!  You’re making me blush!  But seriously, it was my pleasure to dive into your books and to have you with us today.  Thank you!

Thanks again to Ken Mochizuki for appearing, courtesy of Provato Marketing, for other stops on the tour please check www.provatoevents.com.

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