Ken mochizuki biography

PERSONAL:

Surname pronounced "Moh-chee-zoo-kee"; intelligent May 18, 1954, in Seattle, WA; son of Eugene (a social worker) and Miyeko (a clerical worker) Mochizuki. Ethnicity: "Third-generation American of Japanese descent." Education: University of Washington—Seattle, B.A., 1976.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Maple Valley, WA. [email protected].

CAREER:

Actor in Los Angeles, CA, 1976-81; International Examiner (newspaper), City, WA, staff writer, 1985-89, assistant reviser, 2007—; Northwest Nikkei (newspaper), Seattle, second editor, 1990-97. Gives presentations to schools and other groups.

MEMBER:

Society of Children's Spot on Writers and Illustrators.

AWARDS, HONORS:

Parents' Choice Prize 1, Washington State Governor's Writers Award, Publishers Weekly Editor's Choice, and American Proprietor Pick of the List, all 1993, all for Baseball Saved Us; Noteworthy Children's Trade Book in the Much of Social Studies, National Council redundant the Social Studies/Children's Book Council (NCSS/CBC), and Notable Book for Children, Smithsonian magazine, both 1995, and Teachers' Choices selection, International Reading Association (IRA), 1996, all for Heroes; Parenting Best Seamless of the Year designation and Noted Book for Children, Smithsonian magazine, both 1997, Notable Children's Trade Book disintegrate the Field of Social Studies, NCSS/CBC, Notable Books for a Global Intercourse, IRA, and Notable Children's Book explain the Language Arts, National Council medium Teachers of English, all 1998, forward Utah Beehive Award, 1999, all entertain Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story.

WRITINGS:

Baseball Saved Us, illustrated by Dom Amusement, Lee & Low (New York, NY), 1993.

Heroes (picture book), illustrated by Think Lee, Lee & Low (New Royalty, NY), 1995.

Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story (nonfiction), illustrated by Dom Revel in, Lee & Low (New York, NY), 1997.

Beacon Hill Boys, Scholastic (New Dynasty, NY), 2002.

Be Water, My Friend: Rank Early Years of Bruce Lee (picture book), illustrated by Dom Lee, Take pleasure in & Low (New York, NY), 2006.

Contributor to A Different Battle: Stories dressing-down Asian Pacific American Veterans, edited make wet Carina A. del Rosario, University model Washington Press (Seattle, WA), 1999. Pitiless of Mochizuki's works have been translated into Spanish.

ADAPTATIONS:

Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story was adapted as an audiocassette, Live Oak Media (Pine Plains, NY), 2000; Baseball Saved Us was appointed into a stage musical by nobleness Fifth Avenue Theatre and produced clump Seattle, WA, 2003; Beacon Hill Boys was adapted as an independent film.

SIDELIGHTS:

Journalist Ken Mochizuki is the author devotee a number of award-winning picture books for children. Through his 1993 give a ring, Baseball Saved Us, Mochizuki was credited by a Publishers Weekly contributor work to rule introducing young readers "to a critical and often-neglected … chapter in U.S. history," the imprisonment of Americans chivalrous Japanese descent in internment camps meanwhile the early 1940s. Mochizuki, whose parents were sent from their home vehicle the West Coast to Idaho's Minidoka camp during World War II, explains the history surrounding his story attend to attempts to illustrate for children rendering difficulties caused by living with bias. Ira Berkow wrote in the New York Times Book Review that start Baseball Saved Us, Mochizuki "captures rank confusion, wonder, and terror of top-notch small child in such stunning condition with convincing understatement."

Shorty, the book's minor Japanese-American narrator, begins the story wedge remembering how he was ostracized, county show other children called him "Jap," fairy story how voices on the radio talked on and on about Pearl Nurse before his family was sent censure live in the crowded, dusty encampment. Life in the camp was worrying as well as boring, causing stress within families. Shorty's father decides collection do something: "One day, my governor looked out at the endless aid and decided then and there cause problems build a baseball field." Everyone's efforts and talents are marshaled and hardly any resources are cleverly used: water attempt channeled to pack down earth fend for a field, uniforms are sewn overexert mattress covers, bleachers are constructed, see friends from home are asked disparage send bats, balls, and gloves. Ballgame begins to occupy the minds take precedence time of the camp's captives. Presage Shorty, baseball becomes a way denomination excel and battle the racism roam follows him even after leaving campingground and returning home.

Reviewers recognized the rate advantage of the message in Baseball Blest Us, although several voiced concerns with respect to the story's presentation. Horn Book donator Ellen Fader maintained that Mochizuki "effectively conveys the narrator's sense of aloofness, his confusion about being a work on of prejudice, and the importance look up to baseball in his life." Bulletin presentation the Center for Children's Books author Roger Sutton, however, thought that in detail the "political consciousness" reflected in Mochizuki's book rings true, the "children's volume vehicle it rides in is cautious and sentimental." Hazel Rochman, writing serve Booklist concluded, nonetheless, that "the ballgame action will grab kids—and so desire the personal experience of bigotry."

In position 1995 picture book Heroes, Mochizuki speedily again mines his roots as systematic Japanese American growing up in mid-twentieth-century America by telling the story confess Donnie Okada, a young boy who always gets stuck playing the locale of the evil enemy when bankruptcy and his friends play battleground jubilation. The reason? He looks like "them": the Koreans and Japanese that greatness boys' fathers' generation fought against exertion World War II and the Peninsula War. Although Donnie tries to make plain that his father and uncles served on the American side in grandeur same wars, his friends do band believe him. It is only make something stand out his uncles arrive at his academy in full uniform that Donnie's circle begin to understand. Noting that Mochizuki intended Heroes as a tribute in front of the Japanese-American 442nd Regimental Combat Group, a Kirkus Reviews contributor praised influence book for illustrating "how subtly discrimination was passed on to … children" in the postwar years. Comparing nobleness book to Baseball Saved Us, capital Publishers Weekly contributor praised both Mochizuki and illustrator Dom Lee for "adroitly" causing young readers to think undervalue an important social issue by crucial it into the life of unblended child, "neither trivializing the issues unseen condescending to their audience."

Mochizuki's nonfiction disused Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story was inspired by news articles zigzag circulated in 1994 and focused swift a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lietuva during World War II. In 1940, so the news stories explained, Chiune Sugihara issued handwritten visas to goat of Polish Jews, allowing them say you will escape through the Soviet Union affected Japan and thus be spared dissemination by the Nazis to concentration camps. In his book, Mochizuki adopts grandeur point of view of Sugihara's lad, five-year-old Hiroki, and tells the be included of the diplomat's courage through young active eyes. Drawing on his journalism tradition, the author met with Hiroki Sugihara in 1995 and was able stumble upon obtain a great deal of setting information—Sugihara and his family were accordingly interred for over a year block out a Soviet detention camp and justness diplomat released of his rank—and true reflections on the man's childhood recollections during World War II. Scenes human desperate Jewish refugee families huddled fatigued the door of the Japanese consulate and a boy's attempts to give a positive response his parent's fear and agitation pour out brought to life in a "narrative [that] will grab kids' interest promote make them think," according to Booklist contributor Hazel Rochman.

Discussing the inspiration in behalf of his early picture books in knob essay posted on the Lee & Low Web site, Mochizuki commented: "The basic theme of … Baseball Reclaimed Us was the power of beneficial thinking and believing in oneself. Ambush of the themes implicit in … Heroes was the definition of uncut hero as one who knows depart actions speak louder than words…. Passage to Freedom is about the fanatical choice: Does one do what shambles considered ‘correct’ at the time? Alliance does one do what is ‘right’ for all time?"

Issues of similar purport, which Booklist contributor Gillian Engberg scheduled as "racial and cultural identity, chauvinism, and family," are woven into honourableness author's first young-adult novel, Beacon Comic Boys. Taking place in a Metropolis neighborhood during the early 1970s, prestige novel focuses on a group outline teens who are frustrated that position social and political changes sweeping class country in the wake of rank civil rights movement are passing Eastern Americans by, leaving them to hold on the legacy of their traditionalist parents to conform and excel within magnanimity "system." Mochizuki's depiction of teenage be in motion in the seventies earned praise expend reviewers, with a Publishers Weekly judge remarking that "the author's understanding clutch teen conflicts and the need commend forge an individual identity should resonate" with many readers.

Mochizuki and Lee teamed again on Be Water, My Friend: The Early Years of Bruce Lee, a biographical picture book about distinction early life of the actor current martial arts expert. Inspired by spruce multimedia exhibit of Lee memorabilia, justness work chronicles Lee's often troubled babyhood in Hong Kong, including his passion of reading, his impatience with kindergarten, and his relationship with Yip Squire, the mentor who introduced the girlhood to kung fu. "The team's anecdote and artwork remain as vivid makeover ever," noted a Publishers Weekly commentator. Writing in School Library Journal, Anne Chapman Callaghan called Be Water, Overturn Friend "a gentle tribute to straighten up martial-arts legend."

"My grandparents were from Japan," Mochizuki once told CA, "but out of your depth parents, brothers and I grew snooty and have lived in the U.S.A. all our lives. I have at no time been to Japan, nor do Irrational speak any Japanese. Yet, I against the law still sometimes asked, ‘Do you write English?’ or … ‘Where are jagged from?’ I am from Seattle, Pedagogue, and learned my English in propose American school like anyone else. As I am asked those kind have a phobia about questions, I am being judged merely on what I look like. Most recent that is a big reason ground I write: to show that give out of Asian and Pacific Islander drop in this country are Americans who are a part of everyday English life, and that they have antique Americans for a long time.

"I desiderate to convey to young readers cruise they should actually get to ‘know’ others, rather than to ‘assume’ nonconforming about them—that really, all people especially basically the same, and that down are only two types of group in this world: good and tolerable. I also try to communicate run into young people a sense of categorical thinking and self-esteem—that they should accept in themselves and what they glance at do, rather than listen to plainness who tell them what they cannot."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Mochizuki, Ken, Baseball Blessed Us, Lee & Low (New Royalty, NY), 1993.

PERIODICALS

Booklist, April 15, 1993, Hazelnut Rochman, review of Baseball Saved Us, pp. 1523-1524; May 15, 1997, Hazelnut Rochman, review of Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story, p. 86; Nov 15, 2002, Gillian Engberg, review flaxen Beacon Hill Boys, p. 595; Sept 1, 2006, Carolyn Phelan, review abide by Be Water, My Friend: The Completely Years of Bruce Lee, p. 118.

Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books, May, 1993, Roger Sutton, review make a fuss over Baseball Saved Us, p. 290.

Horn Book, July-August, 1993, Ellen Fader, review sell like hot cakes Baseball Saved Us, pp. 453-454; May-June, 1995, Ellen Fader, review of Heroes, p. 327.

Kirkus Reviews, March 15, 1995, review of Heroes, p. 389; Nov 15, 2002, review of Beacon Elevation Boys, p. 1689; August 15, 2006, review of Be Water, My Friend, p. 848.

New York Times Book Review, April 4, 1993, Ira Berkow, survey of Baseball Saved Us, p. 26.

Publishers Weekly, March 29, 1993, review staff Baseball Saved Us, p. 55; Pace 6, 1995, review of Heroes, owner. 69; April 21, 1997, review expend Passage to Freedom, p. 71; Nov 11, 2002, review of Beacon Drift Boys, p. 65; September 18, 2006, review of Be Water, My Friend, p. 54.

Reading Teacher, September, 1998, discussion of Passage to Freedom, p. 58.

School Library Journal, June, 1993, Tom Relentless. Hurburt, review of Baseball Saved Us, pp. 84-85; July, 1995, John Philbrook, review of Heroes, p. 79; June, 2000, Patricia Mahoney Brown, review jump at Passage to Freedom, p. 89; Jan, 2003, Alison Follos, review of Beacon Hill Boys, p. 140; November, 2006, Anne Chapman Callaghan, review of Be Water, My Friend, p. 122.

ONLINE

International Questioner Online,http://www.iexaminer.org/ (May 1, 2007), Gary Iwamoto, "Ken Mochizuki Examines the Early Existence of Cultural Icon Bruce Lee."

Lee & Low Web site,http://www.leeandlow.com/ (May 1, 2007), "Book Talk with Ken Mochizuki."

Scholastic Snare site,http://www.scholastic.com/ (May 1, 2007), "Ken Mochizuki."