Barbed Wire Baseball

By Marissa Moss and Yuko Shimizu

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. This true story, set in a Japanese internment camp during World War II, introduces children to a little-discussed part of American history through Marissa Moss’s rich text and Yuko Shimizu’s beautiful illustrations. The book includes author and illustrator notes, archival photographs, and a bibliography.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Open Road Integrated Media
• Release date: Mar 8, 2016
• ISBN: 9781613124932

Marissa Moss

Marissa Moss is the award-winning author-illustrator of more than 75 books, from picture books to middle-grade to graphic novels. She is best known for the Amelia's Notebook series, which has sold millions of copies. She lives in California.

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Reviews for Barbed Wire Baseball

[abigailadams26 · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Author Marissa Moss and illustrator Yuko Shimizu tell the story of Kenichi "Zeni" Zenimura, a Japanese-American baseball player and team manager in this poignant and inspirational picture-book biography. Having loved the sport since he was an eight-year-old boy, when he saw his first game, Zeni grew up to play the sport, becoming a champion in California's Japanese-American leagues during the 1920s and 30s. He played with Lou Gehrig and Babe Ruth in exhibition games, and took the latter on a baseball exhibition tour of Japan. But when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor in 1941, everything changed. Zeni was sent, along with his family and more than 100,000 other Americans of Japanese descent, to an internment camp for the duration of World War II. Here, at Gila River War Relocation Center, he spearheaded a movement to build a baseball diamond, organizing the camp inmates into teams, and starting a camp league. Taking part in "America's Pastime" helped these wrongfully imprisoned citizens to feel free, even if only for a short time, and made them feel like they belonged in their own country. The book concludes with a detailed afterword about Zenimura, with an author's note, illustrator's note, bibliography and index...I initially sought out Barbed Wire Baseball (which gained the sub-title "How One Man Brought Hope to the Japanese Internment Camps of WWII" in its paperback edition) after reading and enjoying The Cat Man of Aleppo, a title chosen earlier this year (2021) as a Caldecott Honor book. I was impressed to learn that The Cat Man of Aleppo was only expatriate Japanese illustrator Yuko Shimizu's second picture-book, and, finding the artwork in it so striking and appealing, decided to track down this first book she illustrated. I'm so glad I did, as I found both story and artwork here immensely appealing. The true story of Zenimura's actions, in building and managing a baseball league inside the internment camp, reminded me of the similar but fictional narrative in Ken Mochizuki's Baseball Saved Us, which I read years ago. Apparently there is a documentary about Zenimura, "Diamonds in the Rough: Zeni and the Legacy of Japanese-American Baseball," that includes the testimony of actor Pat Morita (of Karate Kid fame), who was also an internee at Gila River. I will have to see if I can track that down and watch it. In any case, I highly recommend this one to picture-book readers looking for baseball stories, stories of the internment of Japanese-Americans during WWII, or tales of inspirational people who, no matter how terrible the circumstance, never give up.

[jnmwheels · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

A hard to find biography retelling the struggle of a Zeni, an American detained in an internment camp during WWII, this book tells the story of Zeni's quest to return to professional baseball. Illustrations from a variety of angles let the reader feel like they are part of the story, Light also plays a role in the illustrations. Barbed wire cannot restrict the freedom he feels when he plays. Finding ways to bring joy into bad situations is one of many lessons children will earn from this book.

[sullywriter_1 · Rating: 5 out of 5 stars]

Great story and superb illustrations. See also Baseball Saved Us by Ken Mochizuki and Dom Lee.