Baseball Saved Us

Mochizuki, Ken. Baseball Saved Us. Illus. Dom Lee. New York: Lee & Low Books Inc., 1993.

Baseball Saved Us, by Ken Mochizuki, tells the story of a Japanese American boy and his family being sent to an internment camp during World War II. The people in the internment camp didn’t have much to do, so they created a baseball field which served as a source of entertainment and also a source of self-confidence for the boy. Mochizuki addresses themes in the book such as justice and prejudice honestly but without condoning racism, which is a key component of good historical fiction.

This book addresses the social issue of racism in a way that, even though it takes place in the past, people of today would be able to relate to the situations. The author’s style of writing uses harsh terms, such as “Jap,” to show racism, but it also shows how the boy overcomes these remarks and how eventually his peers accept him for who he is. The most important theme is belongingness. Baseball helps the boy feel like he belongs with the Japanese in the internment camp and when he returns to his normal school he is accepted by his friends when he proves how much he has improved at baseball.

The illustrations, which were created by scratching images out of beeswax and then adding color with oil paints, are very realistic and enhance the text by showing emotion. Some of the illustrations were inspired by actual photographs of an internment camp, which adds to the realism.