Fuse 8 n’ Kate: Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki, ill. Dom Lee

It’s baseball season! And baby season! Kate just had a baby (her first!!) almost a month early, and now that she has her brain back in order, we’re finally tackling a baseball picture book for the spring. Now to my mind, this book is significant because as a work of historical fiction, it was one of the first picture book titles for kids to address a moment in American history that we, as a nation, are not proud of. I apologize for not grabbing the 25th anniversary edition of this book for Kate (supposedly it has more notes included) but this one worked out just fine. It’s definitely our first Lee & Low book, and spurred on many other books for kids to come. Stay tuned for copious recommendations for readalikes to this title.

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Show Notes:

The nonfiction book for kids that I allude to about photographers who shot images of the Japanese internment camps was Seen and Unseen by Betsy Partridge

My Lost Freedom by George Takai truly is my favorite Japanese Internment Camp picture book for kids, as I say.

Be sure to check out the book Barbed Wire Baseball by Marissa Moss, for a nonfiction version of this book.

And also please find Take Me Out to the Yakyu, if you want to compare and contrast American and Japanese baseball games today.

Honestly, I’m very pleased that the awful man with the glasses and the gun in the guardhouse, though the text says he gives our hero the thumbs up when he wins the championship game, is never depicted doing so. Instead you see this:

I love how the illustrator references the image of the man in the guardhouse with this boy with the glasses on the mound just with these images.

Please Note: Kate would like more baseball socks in books, please.

Kate Recommends: Special K Brownie Batter Protein Bars

Betsy Recommends: The film Hitchcock

Filed under: Fuse 8 n' Kate