Loved it.

Read on . . .

One of my favorite types of books to read are books that take place around World War II and the Holocaust.  There will never be a drought of stories to tell from this horrific part of history.  But I was shocked when I picked up Someone Named Eva by Joan M. Wolf.  I had never read a book told from this particular perspective during the war.  Completely and utterly fascinating to me.  A true example of how a piece of historical fiction can open my eyes into a world that I knew nothing about.  I could not put this book down.  I carried it with me everywhere the day I read it.

Just a few short weeks after Milada’s eleventh birthday, Nazi’s storm every home in her town in Czechoslovakia and take everybody away.  Milada, her mother and grandmother are immediately separated from her father and brother and taken to a gymnasium where she undergoes a physical and doctors measure her features.  Milada and another classmate are torn again from their families, placed on a bus and sent to Poland.  When they arrive in a new girls school, Milada realizes that each girl there shares two traits in common:  blue eyes and blonde hair.  In addition, each has exactly the right size head or nose.

It is at this school that their indoctrination to Germanization begins.  She is renamed Eva and each girl is trained to forget everything about their past.  They have no past.  They only have futures of being the perfect German citizen and be raised up to be perfect German wifes.  Eva struggles with her new identity, the new language and to remain true to her upbringing and background.  She holds on to a pin from her grandmother to always remember who she is.

And then the impossible happens.  Eva can no longer remember her true name.  What did people use to call her?  Can she recall it?  She can’t remember her name.  The Germans have taken everything from her.

After the intense period of training, each girl is adopted into a German family.  With a new name, a new language, a new sister and a new mother and father, will Eva be able to remember who she really is?  Or will she be lost forever?

Stunning.  This story had me jaw dropping all over the place.

There is a seven page author’s note at the end of the book which really brought the whole thing home for me.  Inspired by the true events that took place in the town of Lidice where Hitler had a personal vendetta for a particular officer there, Hitler ordered the entire town to be emptied and razed.  The men and boys were shot immediately while the women and children spent three days in the Kladno school gym.  Their heads were measured and their eye and hair colors examined to see if they matched Aryan standards.  Children who were selected for “Germanization” and the very youngest were sent directly to orphanages where they were adopted by German citizens.  Many children in the retraining program were literally kidnapped off of the streets.  At the end of the war, these Lidice children were tracked down and returned back home to their families.   And for the smallest children who remembered nothing of their former lives were traumatized when removed from their adoptive German parents.

Someone Named Eva introduced me to this horrific aspect of World War II.  Eva’s story was beautifully told and I felt so drawn to her.  Even to the very last page, I had no idea where Eva’s story would go.  I’d love for more people to pick this book up.  It deserves a wide audience.  In fact, the more I think back on this book, the more I love it.  An excellent book and I’d highly recommend it for readers of all ages.

(And by the way, the hardcover has a terrible cover.  It’s the copy that I read.  Thank goodness they improved the paperback.)

Links of interest:  Joan M. Wolf website.  More book blogger reviews.
Genre:  Middle grade historical fiction.  Approx ages 9-12.
Publisher: Clarion Books.  July 16, 2007.
Hardcover, 208 pages. ISBN 0618535799
Someone Named Eva is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

I Am a Star is the juvenile non-fiction account of  Inge Auerbacher, who at the age of seven in 1942 was sent with her parents to a concentration camp.  She spend her next three birthdays there.

The book begins,

Of fifteen thousand children imprisoned in the Eterazin concentration camp in Czechoslovakia between 1941 and 1945, about one hundred survived.  I am one of them.  At least one a nd a half million children were killed in the Nazi Holocaust.  The reason most of those children died is that they were Jewish.

Why should one remember these dreadful events? The death of one innocent child is a catastrophe; the loss of such numbers in unimaginable.  Their silent voices must be heard today.  This is why I feel compelled to trace the historical events that made this great evil possible and to tell my own story.

Auerbacher’s story is horrifying and she does give a really good background about the history of the Holocaust so that a child who knows nothing about World War II would learn and understand what happened.  The question that will never be answered though is why?  We know what happened, but we will never truly understand why.

Interspered between the text is a collection of poems written by Auerbacher.  Or I assume that they were written by Auerbacher – there was never really an acknowledgement or explanation of the poems – which is partly why I found the format of I Am a Star a bit disconcerting.  They seemed randomly placed throughout the book.   They did relate to the text though, so I am assuming they were written by Auerbacher.  It’s almost as though the book wanted to be a non-fiction narrative written in verse and also written formally.  I liked both, but maybe they needed to be placed into the book a bit better.

I  enjoyed the photos that accompanied the text.  I always enjoy photos in memoirs, and this was no exception.  I like to visualize what’s going on.  There were a fair number of illustrations.  Again, I’m not sure if these were Auerbacher’s or not.

I really liked I Am a Star and learning about Auerbacher’s story.  If I could recommend only one non-fiction book to read about a child in the Holocaust though, this one would probably not be it.  I just didn’t feel that gut-wrenching horror that I usually feel when I read books about the Holocaust.  I felt removed from the story.  And to tell you the truth, I imagine that the author had to remove herself from her own story just to get past the emotion of bringing it all back to the forefront of her memory.

Overall, I’m glad I read it but it’s not on the best Holocaust memoirs that I’ve read.  I’d recommend something along the lines of I Have Lived a Thousand Years by Livia Button Jackson at about the same reading level.  But don’t discount I Am a Star. Each memoir written about the Holocaust should be valued and their stories heard.  We are losing the survivors to old age, pretty soon we will have nobody left and only their words will be left behind.

Links of interest: Inge Auerbacher website, more book blogger reviews.
Genre:  Memoir for ages 9-12.
Publisher:  Puffin.  February 1, 1993
Paperback, 96 pages.  ISBN:  0140364013
I Am a Star, Child of the Holocaust is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Once I got past the rocky start, I really enjoyed this book.  The letters are in majority to and from Juliet Ashton who after World War II has ended is living in London.  Juliet is a columnist and receives a letter from Dawsey, a member of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society, based in Guernsey, who is simply making an inquiry about another author and would she be so kind to send the name and address of a bookshop in London so he may order more of his books by post.  His letter has caught her attention because Guernsey was occupied for five years during World War II and his description of the society brought into being because of a roast pig kept hidden from the German soldiers.  She wants to know more.

Juliet and Dawsey begin a correspondence that soon includes several other members of the book society.  Juliet begins to research everything that she can find out about Guernsey, its people, and the occupation in which she hopes will be material for a new book.  Through the letters, she creates a close kinship with the people of Guernsey and feels a strong desire to visit.  She does and never leaves!

I can’t help but point out Serena at Savvy Verse and Wit, who reviewed the book yesterday, because I so enjoyed her description:

This novel is one of those books that will hone in on the perfect reader.  The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is chock full of bookish quotes and must have been written with the love of books in mind. Beyond the WWII details, the rationing, the tip-toeing around German officers, and the loss of good friends shipped off to concentration camps, this is a novel about a writer who blooms in the countryside among new friends and new scenery.

The Guernsey Literary Potato Peel Society is just that.  It’s a fun read because of the quirky and fleshed out characters (one of the books many strengths) but yet it was touching and sad when learning of concentration camp stories and details of the German occupation.  Details about the war was what I appreciated the most about this book.  I love learning facts and tidbits about the war and the many stories had me completely fascinated.  The other central part of this story is about Juliet and how she comes to transplant herself among new people.  They are all healing from the war and it is through their shared membership of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society that they are able to begin to move on with their lives.

Excellent video of Annie Barrows discussing The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society:

I recommended this book to my mom several months ago before I even read it because I knew she would like it.  After finishing the book, I was happy that I had already told her to read it.  And really, telling your mom to read a book?   Sometimes I read a book and think, no way am I telling my mom to read that!  Not so, with this book.  I liked it and so did my mom.  And really, what more of a recommendation do you need than that?

The publisher has made available five copies to give away to each of the  TLC  Book Tour stops.  So here’s your chance to  pick up a free copy for yourself.  To enter, simply leave a comment on this blog post answering this question:  are a member of a book club and if so does it have a name? If so, what is it? Anything to rival the name The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society?

Links of interest:  Visit other reviews/interviews at other TLC  Book Tour stops, other blogger reviews, readers guide for book clubs, Potato Peel Pie recipe and more, Annie Barrows website.
Genre:  Historical Fiction
Publisher:  Dial Press.  July 29, 2008
Hardcover, 288 pages.  ISBN:  0385340990
The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powell’s and Amazon.

Being at school wasn’t any better, because as much as he wanted to just play football, the other kids only wanted to play one thing:  war.  The other kids were always the heroes and even brought their father’s medals to prove it.  As much as he wanted to play the hero as well, he was always relegated to one role, the enemy, simply because he was Asian, and therefore looked like the enemy.

Donnie always protested and tried to explain that both his father and Uncle had been in the army during the World War II.  “How could your dad and uncle be in our army?” they taunted.  “Yeah, there wasn’t anybody looking like you guys on our side.  If you can’t prove it, you better start hiding.”

Donnie could prove it.  He’d seen his father’s medals, cap, and uniform at home but always got into trouble when he looked at them.  Wanting to know why his father and uncle never spoke of the war at home, his Uncle replied, “Real heroes don’t brag.  They just do what they are supposed to do.”

It wasn’t until they saw Donnie being chased home from school under the taunts of “Rat-tat-tat-tat! Pow! Pow! Pow! You’re dead, Donnie!” that they realized how bad things were at school and that they had the power to prove to his friends that their family had as much American loyalty as anybody else.  They promised that they would fix everything for Donnie the next day after school.  Donnie hoped that they would come through in a big way and that he would no longer be the enemy, but rather a friend.

Heroes is recommended as a great teaching tool or introduction to the concept that about 50,000 Americans of Asian and Pacific Islander descent served in the armed forces during World War II.  According to the author’s note, most notably was the 442nd Regimental Combat team, an all Japanese American regiment that fought in Europe and became one of the most highly decorated units in U.S. Army history.

This is a book that I’ll be sharing with  my two boys.

Links of interest:  Ken is also the author of  Baseball Saved Us (reviewed here), Be Water, My Friend:  The Early Years of Bruce Lee (reviewed here)  and Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story (reviewed here), all of which are also illustrated by Dom Lee.  Also check out the Maw Books interview with Ken Mochizuki.
Genre:  Picture Book, Fiction.  Ages 4-8.
Publisher: Lee and Low Books.  March 1997
Paperback, 32 pages.
Heroes is available from your favorite independent bookstore, Powells, and Amazon.

In this photo the chocolate and milk are being mixed in a double boiler.

Afterwards, it’s blended with the dry ingredients and I baked it in a bunt pan.

The funny thing was that the recipe said to sift the flour not once, not twice but four times!  After sifting it twice, I mentioned on Twitter than my hand was seriously aching.  Everybody said to stop sifting and move on!  Move on, I did.

Mary Ann Rodman also provided a glaze recipe and I obviously didn’t know how to drizzle it on, as I totally overdid it and it pooled all over the plate.  But I’m creative!  I just covered it with strawberries.

Overall, it was an okay cake.  The taste was great but it was on the dry side.  I honestly don’t know if it was the fault of the baker (which would be easy) or the fault of the recipe.  But nobody complained!

Our book club has a reputation of themed refreshments and everybody seemed impressed I could come up with a World War II ration cake.   Making a recipe like this would be fun for kids who are learning about the home front during World War II or other such historical fiction books. I said the same thing when I made Shauna Burg’s Butter Bean cookies, but it’s true, it’s so much fun to make a connection in such a tangible way!

Links of interest: Maw Books review for Jimmy’s Stars by Mary Ann Rodman, author interview, part 1 and part 2, and the nasty tomato aspic photos.   Mary Ann Rodman’s website.
Jimmy’s Stars is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

The ingredients.   Yes, that would be tomato, celery, gelatin, cayenne, salt, lemon juice, lettuce, and mayonnaise.  It can’t get any better than that.

The tomatoes and celery ready to boil together.

After it’s boiled, gelatin added and put in the mold to form.

Perhaps the grossest photo I’ve ever shared on the blog.  Served atop lettuce and garnished with mayo.

SO!  During my book club meeting I asked for two volunteers who would be willing to try a dish that they ate from the book.  Most immediately though of the tongue they ate.  Another thought it was the salmon pea wiggle.  Two brave book clubbers volunteered before they knew what they’d be trying.

And to gross you out even more, here they are taking a bite.  Notice.  I said bite.  After one bite each, they both had to run to the sink for water.

My husband took a bite later and literally gagged.  I had a hard enough time making it, I didn’t try it at all.

Truly, the most disgusting dish I’ve ever made.  I’d link you over to the recipe, but seriously who would make this anyways?  Well, okay, maybe if you’re like me and reading Jimmy’s Stars as part of our book club reading, then maybe, just maybe you might be tempted too.

On a better note, I did make a rationed chocolate cake for book club (I’m seriously impressed with myself with keeping up with our book clubs themed food) which is also a recipe that came from Mary Ann Rodman.  Post coming up for that soon. Edited to add link to chocolate cake recipe!

I dare ya.  I dare one of ya to waste perfectly good tomatoes, celery, lettuce, and mayo on such a dish.  Any takers?!

Links of interest: Maw Books review for Jimmy’s Stars by Mary Ann Rodman and author interview, part 1 and part 2.  Mary Ann Rodman’s website.
Jimmy’s Stars is available from your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

Before the war . . .

. . . the evenings lingered longer, and it was always summer when it wasn’t Halloween, or Christmas.  Long, lazy light reached between the houses, and the whole street played our version of hide-and-seek, called only by olly-olly-in-free and supper time.  Before I could keep up, I rode my brother’s shoulder’s, hung in the crook of Dad’s good arm.  I rode them across the long shadows of afternoon, high over hedges, heading for home base, when our street was the world,

before the war,
when there wasn’t a cloud in the sky.

Doesn’t that just draw you in?  If it was that great before the war than what about after the war?  Is it not always summer?  Does nobody play hide-and-seek anymore?  Is it dark and stormy?  I love how the first page gives you the promise of a great story to follow.

Davy Bowman has two heroes in his life:  his father and his older brother.  His dad is a grown up kid who could always be relied upon to play out on the street with all the other neighborhood kids and catch Halloween pranksters with pranks of his own.  Davy never had to worry about saying something wrong in front of his Dad.  But his father’s heart is breaking as his older brother, Bill, is in training flying B-17s and about to be shipped overseas to help with the war effort.   With the war now invading the home front, Davy is finding that his childhood and his family is changing in ways that he never could have expected.  With neighborhood wide blackouts, the kids no longer play out on the street.  Instead they scrounge around for rubber and scrap metal to donate to the war effort.  With teachers now short of hand, Miss Titus, an ancient woman, finally puts Davy’s classroom in order.  She’s a fireball and easily one of my favorite characters in the book.  Bill, finally overseas, has gone missing while on a flight mission and when Davy’s grandparents move in his mother goes to work so she can avoid sitting home all day and worrying.

What I loved most about On the Wings of Heroes was that weaved into this great story and memorable  family was the little details that made this war feel so real and believable.  Wouldn’t you know it?  I was learning something!  This is historical fiction at it’s best.  If you want to know what it was like for a family and community to be on the home front during World War II then this book will take you right there.

I have been fortunate to hear Richard Peck speak not once but twice (which I still have photos and a post to share with you from months ago!) and I am fascinated with the passion that he has for research, writing, characters and great stories.  With more than 40 books under his belt, I have a lot of back titles to go through.  I’m looking forward to the task ahead of me.

Who is an author that once you get hooked, you have to go back through their entire backlist?  For me it’s Richard Peck, Laurie Halse Anderson, Jacqueline Woodson and Anita Shreve.  You?

Links of interest:  Why oh why does Richard Peck not have a website?  The Maw Books reviews of A Long Way from Chicago,  A Year Down Yonder.
Genre:  Juvenile, Historical Fiction.  Ages 9-12
Publisher: Dial Books.  February 15,  2007
Hardcover, 160 pages.  ISBN: 0803730810
On the Wings of Heroes is available at your local independent bookstore, Powell’s, and Amazon.

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.

“Shorty” was thus nicknamed because he was smaller than all of his classmates.  He was always the last to picked for any team when they played games.  Everything got worse when he began to be called names that he didn’t understand and nobody talked to him.  His parents then pulled him out of school when it was time to move out of their house and into the horse stalls that was a temporary stop on their ultimate destination to a dusty and desolate barbed wired internment camp.

The longer they stayed there, the worse things got.  The youth were becoming more and more despondent and disrespectful to their elders.  Knowing that they needed a outlet, Shorty’s father decided that the camp would benefit from having a baseball field.  Soon, there were baseball games going on all the time for both kids and grown-ups.  Shorty played as well but this time around it wasn’t so bad because he was the same size as all of his other Japanese friends.  But  he didn’t like playing under the watchful eye of the gaurd in the security tower who seemed to scrutinize his every move under his dark sunglasses.  Shorty got so mad that he was determined to show that guard exactly what he was made of.  And he did!  Hitting the ball hard he made it all the way to home base and onto the shoulders of his teammates.

But that didn’t make everything better.  Eventually, Shorty and his family returned home to the same classmates who made fun of him before he left.  He was both taunted and ignored.  The book ends as Shorty is again playing baseball, but this time among his white peers.  But he had gotten better during his time of playing baseball in the camps.  Can he prove that he is just as good as his peers?

Ken Mochizuki does an excellent job showing why the Japanese were sent to internment camps, what life was like there, their attitudes towards themselves and their fellow Americans, as well as the difficult transition when they returned home.  As always, the illustrations by Dom Lee are wonderful.  Still mostly monochromatic, there is color in Baseball Saved Us, unlike most of Dom Lee’s other books.  The illustrations inside the camp were more bleak in color and the illustrations outside the camp were more vibrant in color.  A great comparison between the “outside world” and the camps.

Ken Mochizuki’s own parents were sent to internment camps during World War II.  Coming up next is a great author interview where Ken talks about his parents experience and how that influenced his writing of Baseball Saved Us.  Don’t miss it!  Ken is also the author of  Be Water, My Friend:  The Early Years of Bruce Lee (reviewed here),  Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story (reviewed here), Heroes, and the young adult novel Beacon Hill Boys.

Passage to Freedom is a story that illustrates that there were Japanese who did heroic things during World War II.  Told from the point of view of five-year-old Hiroki Sugihara, the eldest son of the Japanese consul to Lithuania, Hiroki and his family were friends to all.  Although Japanese, they were invited to celebrate Hanukkah with their Jewish neighbors.  One early morning in July, Hiroki’s life changes forever when hundreds of people began to crowd around the gate of their front house.

Although young, Hiroki recognized the fear in their eyes and their haggard dress.  As Jews from Poland escaping Nazi soldiers, they had all come to see his father and ask if he would give them visas to be able to officially travel to Japan and from there to another country and ultimately freedom.  There were hundreds of refugees and Hiroki’s father could only issue a few and thus would need permission from his superiors in Japan.  When Japan refused, he asked again and when they refused a second time he said, “I have to do something.  I may have to disobey my government, but if I don’t, I will be disobeying God.”

He spoke to the crowd which continually grew larger and made his decision with these words, “I will issue visas to each and every one of you to the last.  So, please be patient.”  For an entire month, there was a line of Polish Jews at their door.  From early morning to late at night, he issued more than three hundred visas.  When the Germans approached and the Soviets ordered his father to leave, they stayed in a hotel and still continued to write visas.  When it was time for the family to leave, refugee’s slept at the train station in hopes of receiving a visa before he left.  It is said that as the train pulled away, refugees ran alongside the train with Hiroki’s father handing permission papers out the window.  He was that dedicated to saving as many lives as he could.

Hiroki Sughihara wrote the afterword and I found it fascinating.  In 1985, his father received the “Rightous Among Nations” Award from the famous Holocaust memorial, Yad Vashem.  He was the first and only Asian to have been given the honor.  In 1992, six years after his death, a monument to his father was dedicated in his birthplace on a hill known as the Hill of Humanity.  He also heard from many “Sugihara survivors” who still had and treasured their visas that saved their lives.

Dom Lee’s monochromatic wax paintings, in which he scratches out the images are wonderful.  It is a style that I have not seen before, but man, it works.  As far as the text goes, the only thing I would be critical about is that I couldn’t find what Hiroki’s father’s name was anywhere.  I wonder how this piece of information is missing?  Or maybe I just missed it somewhere?  Because the story is told from Hiroki’s point of view as a five-year-old I didn’t even notice this until I was writing this review.

I loved discovering this hero of World War II.  I’d highly recommend Passage to Freedom:  The Sugihara Story for all those who would like to newly discover or revisit this amazing story about a man who’s compassion for others is inspiring.

In addition to Passage to Freedom, Ken Mochizuki is also the author of the picture books Be Water, My Friend:  The Early Years of Bruce Lee,  Baseball Saved Us, Heroes, and the young adult novel Beacon Hill Boys.  Ken Mochizuki joins us today in an amazing author interview (I’m biased, I think all of my interviews are amazing, but in this case, it really is amazing!).  Do go read it.  That is after you read my other reviews of his books that will be posted today as well.