Author Ken Mochizuki’s Japanese-American parents were sent to Minidoka Japanese internment camp during World War II. I am sad to confess that I had no idea what Japanese internment camps were until I was an adult. To the best of my memory, this part of American history was ignored during my childhood education. This story is a bittersweet and interesting story based on true events that will help young children of today learn a little something of that chapter in our nation’s story.
“One day, my dad looked out at the endless desert and decided then and there to build a baseball field. He said people needed something to do in Camp.”
Before coming to Camp, our narrator was the smallest kid in his class, and he was terrible at baseball. As America raced towards war, the kids in his class picked on him, called him names, and alienated him. One day his parents came to school to collect him. They were hurriedly packing their home as their family was being moved to a Japanese internment camp.
“The Camp wasn’t anything like home . . . back home, the older people were always busy working. But now, all they did was stand or sit around.”
“. . . Dad knew we needed baseball. We got shovels and started digging up the sagebrush in a big empty space near our barracks . . . we didn’t have anything we needed for baseball, but the grown-ups were pretty smart.”
Rallying together, the people of Camp cut up mattress covers for uniforms, found wood for bleachers, and friends from home sent bats, balls, and gloves. Everyone played baseball. The children as well as the grownups.
Our narrator was not good at baseball when he got to Camp, but through constant playing and watching, he became quite good.
When they came home after the war, the transition back into regular life was bumpy. Our narrator, however, is now good at basball and that matters.
Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki can be found at Amazon. If you would like to read another excellent book on the Japanese internment camps, check out Newbery Honor book, Echo.