Review: Barbed Wire Baseball

Barbed Wire Baseball
Written by Marissa Moss; Illustrated by: Yuko Shimizu
Abrams Books for Young Readers
(Review copy obtained from the District of Columbia Public Library)

My initial read of Barbed Wire Baseball was in front of a group of third graders. Immediately upon opening the cover, I pointed out the end papers which depict an image of a barbed wire fence set towards the bottom of the page. Presenting the first question that came to mind, "I wonder why the fence isn't set higher?" I explained that with a 32 page book, more than likely, every decision had been poured over.

Marissa Moss' narrative of Kenichi Zenimura's time in the Gila River Japanese Internment Camp is heavily focused on the work that went into creating a baseball field. I can't reiterate enough how appreciative I am of the recent trends in picture book biographies. Moss spend only three page spreads on Zenimura's life before the camp, just enough to give readers a sense of this young man's love of baseball. Just enough to understand why building the diamond had to be done with such precision and care. In the body of the text, Moss touches on Zenimura's activism on behalf of baseball, revealing that he was in the process of organizing exhibition games in Japan just before the attack on Pearl Harbor. A thoughtful afterward reveals even more about Zenimura's uncompromising motivation to create a wold class diamond in the middle of the desert. He was an ambassador for baseball, wanting nothing more than to spread his love for this symbolic American game.

Although the text just touches upon the issue of Japanese internment, the message of this story comes across loud and clear without needing an overt focus. I was delighted to find the back end papers to show the same image of the barbed wire fence set low on the horizon. Before I could even ask my third graders to think about the choice, most were bursting at the seams to share their ideas. As I type this thought right now, I'm still struck by how naturally every student picked up on the representation of hope. Some described how building the field helped them look skyward, over the fence that imprisoned them. Others talked about hitting the ball over the fence as a way of breaking free from their present situation. Funny enough, I hadn't thought about that symbolism but in researching the artist's blog, Shimizu posted an image of the final end papers. I was quite surprised to see an image of a baseball floating over the fence, which was completely lost on me due to the taping of my copy's dust jacket. It's carefully culled stories like Barbed Wire Baseball that exemplifies- when a writer chooses the right focus, there is absolutely no need to be overly explicit with theme.

Even more sensational than Moss' compelling story, Yuko Shimizu's artwork. I don't know enough about style to talk about why the tone felt so perfect for the story but I was definitely compelled to seek out Shimizu's blog. I'm so glad to have found this post about how much care is put into the art of picture book. At one point, Yuko lost her hearing and after a trip to the ER to have it tested, attributed it to fatigue and stress. Yuko, if you could have heard those kids' responses to this story.

Growing up, the bios I had to read were birth-to-death in a sea of text. While some picture book biographies do a wonderful job of encompassing a subject's life (A Splash of Red), even those authors have a discerning eye for including purposeful events and details essential to the narrative. Internment is touched upon, both in the story and in the afterward, but this is a fantastic piece of literature to motivate students to further discover this dark period in american history.

Curriculum Ties:

While Abrams provides a Curriculum Guide full of great tips to lead a discussion, this text can serve as the perfect vehicle to discuss one of the most challenging concepts that young readers are asked to tackle: differentiating between main ideas and theme. Often times, theme is such an abstract idea that it's conventionally viewed as the most difficult aspect to teach. This is such a powerful story, even my third graders has no trouble inferring that this text was far larger than a book about baseball. Because Moss so clearly focuses on the building of the field, it's easy to distinguish this aspect as the main idea. As was the case in Barbed Wire Baseball, theme was so automatic, we had to flip back through the spreads to discuss how the clear presentation of main idea enabled us to inference theme.

While the Common Core's focus on text complexity may prompt intermediate grade teachers to overlook picture books, make no mistake, these seemingly simplistic texts engender incredibly deep thinking. They provide the perfect tool for clear instruction that will ultimately enable kids to build confidence with habits of mind that can then be easily transposed to more challenging text.