Analysis Of Baseball Saved Us

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Baseball Saved Us: A Story of Hope and Reconciliation
Baseball Saved Us, by Ken Mochizuki, is a picture book about a boy living in a Japanese American internment camp during World War II. With its somber color scheme and illustrations, the book accurately portrays the harsh realities of life in an internment camp. The story centers on the boy’s personal struggle to maintain his family life and to find a group of friends under these bleak conditions. In order to create hope and restore their sense of dignity, the boy’s father creates a baseball diamond and sets up a league. The book’s accurate portrayal of life in an internment camp, coupled with its subtext of racial equality, sends a positive ethical message and is an effective way to introduce children to the events of this difficult time period.
Baseball Saved Us exposes children to the grim aspects of the internment camps. It does not hesitate to point out the overcrowded living quarters in the desolate conditions of the desert camps or that Japanese Americans had to discard most of their belongings before leaving their homes. Yet, it is through these realistically dark details that this book teaches one of its most valuable lessons to children. Children need to know that Japanese Americans were unfairly persecuted and interned. Oftentimes history textbooks gloss over the Japanese American internment camps. Baseball Saved Us attempts to elucidate this overlooked subject and teaches children about the wrongful treatment of Japanese Americans during and following WWII. In describing the horrible conditions of the camps, this book serves as a positive ethical influence on children because it shows them how unfair it was for people to be forced to experience these hard...

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...ball Saved Us should be read to all American children. Its illumination of the hardships that Japanese Americans endured and its lessons of racial equality and courage in the face of adversity all send a positive ethical message. Showing children the persecution of Japanese Americans and helping them to empathize with people who are different teaches them that racial prejudice is wrong. In doing so, the book demonstrates that racial equality for all ethnicities is a goal worth striving for. Children learn to recognize the unfairness of the treatment of the “other” and that they should instead treat everyone with the respect that they deserve. The last page of the book is a picture of Shorty being embraced by his teammates. It is a celebration of the defeat of racism and a powerful symbol of the racial reconciliation that the book’s message so heavily promotes.

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