Barbed Wire Baseball - by Marissa Moss

About the Book

"As a boy, Kenichi 'Zeni' Zenimura dreams of playing professional baseball, but everyone tells him he is too small. Yet he grows up to be a successful player, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig! When the Japanese attack Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family are sent to one of ten internment camps where more than 110,000 people of Japanese ancestry are imprisoned without trials. Zeni brings the game of baseball to the camp, along with a sense of hope."--Amazon.com.

Book Synopsis

"Moss is a skilled author of historical narrative nonfiction for young readers; her tale is both well researched and well told. But it's the visually stunning, sensitive illustrations by the hugely talented Shimizu that make the book a standout." --New York Times Book Review

Author Marissa Moss and illustrator Yuko Shimizu's Barbed Wire Baseball is a picture book that movingly tells a true story set in a Japanese American internment camp in World War II.

During World War II, Japanese American baseball player Kenichi "Zeni" Zenimura was sent to an internment camp in the Arizona desert. But even behind barbed wire, Zeni refused to give up the game he loved.

With grit, determination, and a deep belief in the power of baseball, he carved a field from the dust and built a team that brought hope and dignity to thousands.

As a young boy, Kenichi Zenimura (Zeni) wanted to be a baseball player, even though everyone told him he was too small. He grew up to become a successful athlete, playing with Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig.

But when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, Zeni and his family were sent to one of several internment camps established in the U.S. for people of Japanese ancestry.

Zeni brought the game of baseball to the camp, along with a sense of hope, and became known as the "Father of Japanese American Baseball."

A California Book Award Gold Medal Winner
California Reading Association's Eureka! Nonfiction Children's Book Awards - Honor
Notable Children's Books from ALSC

"Shimizu's Japanese brush and ink illustrations, digitally layered with dusty colors suggestive of the arid relocation camp, are a visual feast, from the patterned swirls of battleship steam and desert dust, to the series of depictions of Zenimura in motion, to the rhythmic composition of the female detainees stitching the potato-sack uniforms." --Bulletin of the Center for Children's Books

Review Quotes

"Moss is a skilled author of historical narrative nonfiction for young readers; her tale is both well researched and well told. But it's the visually stunning, sensitive illustrations by the hugely talented Shimizu that make the book a standout."-- "The New York Times Book Review"

About the Author

Marissa Moss has written and illustrated many books for children, including the popular Amelia's Notebook series, as well as Nurse, Soldier, Spy and A Soldier's Secret. She lives in Berkeley, California.

Yuko Shimizu is an illustrator and comics artist best known for the cover of the graphic novel adaptation of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman: The Dream Hunters. She lives in New York City.