picturebooksforolderreaders

 

Baseball Saved Us

Page history last edited by Mary Smartt 4 mos ago

Mochizuki, Ken.  Baseball Saved Us.  Illustrated by Dom Lee.  New York:  Lee

      and Low, 1993  ISBN:  978-1-880000-01-4.

 

 

Plot Summary

A Japanese American boy learns to play baseball when he and his family are forced to live in an internment camp during Worl War II.

Media

Fences and watchtowers are in the background of many pictures – some inspired by Ansel Adams’ photographs of Manzanar.  The use of many shades of brown is perfect for the bleak life in the desert.  The artist used scratchboard overlaid with oil.

Curricular

connections

 

 

Social Studies – prejudice, World War II, Japanese internment

5th up

 

 

Rating

5Q 5P

 

 

 

 

 

 

Extras

Lesson plan ideas on www.leeandlow.com

 

Activity Ideas for Baseball Saved Us

This is a great book for practicing the reading comprehension strategy of Questioning.

Target age:  5th – 8th

Objective:  Students will formulate good questions to help their understanding.

Process:

1.     Students will have a piece of paper folded in half. 

2.     Left column is for writing questions.

3.     Right  column is for answers, if any.

4.     Teacher will read the story, and preface each page reading by a question.  Students will write or share theirs.

5.     Teacher shares good question starters.  I wonder?  I was confused when…

How could that be?  Why do you think? Who? What? When?  Where?

 

 

              6.   Debrief  after reading with thoughts about how the questions helped.

Followup Session:

Students find out more about the time period and internment camps online and make a group bulletin board with “the facts.”

 

Mary Smartt 8/2/09 

 

Mochizuki, K. (1993). Baseball Saved Us. New York, N Y: Lee & Low Books Inc..  Illustrated by Dom Lee. ISBN: 1-880000-01-6.

 

A young boy and his family are sent to an interment camp where he and his family have no privacy and he is bored.  His father builds a baseball field complete with bleaches providing a distraction and an opportunity to gain self esteem through the sport. 

 

Illustrations are done in sepia. 

 

Rating: 3Q/2P 

 

Curriculum Use:

 

American History, World War II 

Japanese Internment Camps  

MWood 

 

 

Mochizuki, K.  (1993).   Baseball saved us.  Lee, Dom (Illus.).  New York:  Lee & Low Books Inc.  1880000016.  5Q/4P.  The illustrations were created by applying encaustic beeswax on paper, then scratching out images and adding oil paints.  

 

 

A touching story of a boy In a Japanese Internment camp and how baseball helped him.  

 

* Grade: 6-8, Subject: American History, WWII, Japanese Internment Camps.

 jw 05/06/08

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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