Baseball Saved Us

Baseball Saved Us. Ken Mochizuki. Illus. By Dom Lee. New York: Lee & Low Books, 1993. 34 pages. $15.95(Hardcover). ISBN 1-880000-01-6. Grades 2-4.

Reminds Me Of…

Although Baseball Saved Us is intended for an elementary aged audience, I thought that this book would be of interest to someone who enjoyed the social causes and baseball aspects of Stephen Kluger’s My Most Excellent Year: A Novel of Love, Mary Poppins & Fenway Park. This novel is where I first learned about the baseball teams that formed in Japanese internment camps in the U.S. during World War II. Although the novel does not mention this particular camp, it does go in to more details about baseball teams and how the government has chosen to honor/respond to the internment camps themselves. As far as other materials for the intended audience go, this story does touch on Japanese culture and how one little boy found strength from his situation and how his family and friends banded together to do the best they could. Another similar title that deals with Japanese Americans is A Jar of Dreams by Yoshiko Uchida. This story takes place in the 1930s and the young characters learn to discover their own strength despite racism and prejudice. I think that baseball would be the main attraction of this book, however, and I think young readers would like to read any story about famous baseball players, like You Never Heard of Sandy Koufax?! by Jonah Winter. In this story an old, unnamed teammate of the great left-handed pitcher Sandy Koufax recaps the life and career of this Brooklyn then Los Angeles Dodger.