Baseball Saved Us

Title: Baseball Saved Us

Words: Ken Mochizuki

Pictures: Dom Lee

Medium: Picture Book

Genre: Historical Fiction

Themes: Japanese-Americans, Acceptance, Baseball, and Prejudice

Other Relevant Information: Winner of Parents' Choice Award and was included in "Picks of the Lists" in American Bookseller

Summary: The story took place during the World War II where Shorty and his family got sent to an internment camp after the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese pilots. In the camp, a baseball field was built because the kids needed something to do to pass the time, which Shorty starts to play baseball and eventually regains his dignity and self-dignity via baseball in a true underdog story.

Literary Elements: The book reflects the true historic authenticity as the setting of the story took place mainly on an internment camp in the Southwest. Some of the illustrations show the storyline as Shorty struggles to gain respect and acceptance from people for his ineffective baseball skills and how the mood was reflected towards Shorty himself. The story is told by Shorty himself, which was the first person point of view. Like I said, Shorty himself was the main character of the story where by playing baseball, he realized that he was not playing to win, but to win some respect and acceptance from non-Asian people.

Evaluation: I really love the book, the illustrations was nice as it was explained in "Behind-the-scenes" that Dom Lee, the illustrator, applies encaustic beeswax on paper then scratching out images and adding oil paint for the color. Also the duo of Mochizuki and Lee on this story is excellent and they have a relationship to the story, as Mochizuki's parents was sent to an internment camp in Idaho while Dom Lee is from South Korea who is a truly baseball fan.

Social Justice Element: This book will help expose some children to prejudice towards a certain people in periods itself and that acceptance and tolerance is very important and that sports will help provide a nice solution to that. This story also shows an important side that was seldom mentioned in the U.S. History, the internment camps compared to a massive coverage of a concentration camps in Germany and other European nations.

Follow-Up Activity: I would like to have a follow-up activity (I'm studying for secondary and deaf education) is to have the middle-school students research about the concentration camps in Germany and the internment camps in America then try to have the students compare and contrast and hold a class discussion why they are similar and why they are different.