Mochizuki, Ken. (1993). Baseball Saved Us. Lee, D. (illus.) New York, New York: Lee & Low Books, Inc..
Brief Annotation: A young Japanese-American boy and his family are put into an internment camp during WWII. Tensions in the hot, dusty camp begin to rise, and the boy's father convinces the people in the camp to create a baseball field. The boys at the camp form a team, and the narrator takes out his frustration with the camp guards by hitting a home run. He then returns to his hometown and experiences prejudice against Japanese people following the war. He again turns to baseball to help him deal with his troubles.
Genre: Historical fiction picture book
Grade Level: 1-3
Readers who will like this: Readers who like baseball, readers interested in cultural differences, readers learning about WWII
Response/Rating (1-4): 3. The pictures, by Dom Lee, do a good job of depicting the dry, hot conditions at the camp (they are made by applying beeswax to paper, scratching out images and then adding oil paint, so the art is very unique and interesting). The story provides students with an interesting perspective into the experience of Japanese-Americans during WWII, by using the lens of a particularly American game.
One question you would ask before a read aloud: Has playing a sport ever helped you with a problem you have had in your life?
Reading Strategies Connection: A picture carousel (Yopp & Yopp, p. 48-49) would be a good prereading activity for this book, especially because the illustrator based many of his paintings on photographs taken by Ansel Adams of the Manzanar internment camp. Copies of these pictures could be posted around the room, and then students could move from one to another, completing an observation/inference chart. This will help them to think about what life in an internment camp was like, and they can make inferences about what that meant to the people living in the camp and to the people who put them in the camp.
I'm always surprised when I return to this book and am reminded that it's classified as historical fiction. I'll try to remember to show you others in the same spirit (and the same topic) that get a nonfiction classification.
ReplyDeleteYour response activity is a good one--in class on 2/28 we'll talk about inferring. See if you think that's what kids will be doing with your picture carousel (or is it prediction?).