About the Author

Ken Mochizuki is the author of several books for children, including the award-winning Baseball Saved Us and Heroes. Dom Lee is the illustrator of Mochizuki's Baseball Saved Us and Heroes, as well as many other children's books.

Reviews

"A stirring story" - Publishers Weekly (Starred review) "For children, this story will be a lesson in courage and conscience and a valuable addition to holocaust materials" - School Library Journal"

"A stirring story" - Publishers Weekly (Starred review) "For children, this story will be a lesson in courage and conscience and a valuable addition to holocaust materials" - School Library Journal"

Mochizuki and Lee's (Baseball Saved Us) skillful volume pays tribute to Chiune Sugihara, a Japanese diplomat posted to Lithuania who in 1940 saved the lives of thousands of Polish Jews. Defying orders from his government, Sugihara handwrote visas for weeks to grant refugees passage through the Soviet Union to Japan. Told in the voice of his then-five-year-old son, the narrative centers upon the boy's impressions: the creaking of the bedsprings as his sleepless father tossed and turned, the Jewish children huddled outside the consulate, his mother massaging her husband's cramped arm. Lee's precise, haunting art, created by scratching out images from beeswax applied to paper and then adding oil paint and colored pencil, has the look of sepia-toned photographs: it unites carefully balanced compositions and emotional intensity. Mochizuki and Lee's inspired treatment brings out the import of Sugihara's brave and compassionate decision. An afterword by Sugihara's son updates the account: the family spent 18 months in a Soviet internment camp, and his father was stripped of his diplomatic post. A stirring story. Ages 4-up. (May)