For Children & Young Adults:

Fiction:

Paper Wishes 
Lois Sepahban

Grandfather’s Journey
Allen Say

My Name is Sangoel
Karen Lynn Williams and Khadra Mohammed

The Bracelet
Yoshiko Uchida

The Name Jar
Yangsook Choi

Save Me a Seat
Sarah Weeks

Baseball Saved Us
Ken Mochizuki

Weedflower 
Cynthia Kadohata
After twelve-year-old Sumiko and her Japanese-American family are relocated from their flower farm in southern California to an internment camp, she tries to hold on to her dream of owning a flower shop.

Nonfiction:

Farewell to Manzanar: A True Story of Japanese American Experience During and After the World War II Internment 
Jeanne Wakatsuki Houston

Drawing From Memory
Allen Say

Barbed Wire Baseball
Marissa Moss
Can a love of baseball raise a person’s hope while living under horrific circumstances? The introduction of baseball to his internment camp in World War II did just that for Kenichi Zenimura. Share the story of baseball’s vital role in Ken’s life during and after the war, when he was a professional player.

For Adults Working with Children & Young Adults: 

Fiction:

The Arrival
Shaun Tan
In this wordless graphic novel, a man leaves his homeland and sets off for a new country, where he must build a new life for himself and his family.

Nonfiction:

A Kid’s Guide to Asian American History: More than 70 Activities
Valerie Petrillo

Infamy: The Shocking Story of the Japanese American Internment in World War II
Richard Reeves

The Train to Crystal City: FDR’s Secret Prisoner Exchange Program and America’s Only Family Internment Camp During World War II
Jan Jarboe Russell
Crystal City was the center of a government program called "quiet passage," under which hundreds of Japanese Americans were exchanged for Americans held behind enemy lines. Jan Russell details a little-known story of how the definition of American citizenship changed under the pressure of war.

Booklist prepared by Lisa Cipolla
Pierce County Library System

We are honored to be presenting The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559 as part of our 2017-18 season at the Seattle Children’s Theatre.

The play explores Ben Uchida’s struggle as he attempts to understand a society that allows mass discrimination and injustice against humanity. The incarceration of hundreds of thousands of Japanese Americans during World War II focuses the spotlight on an unjust and shameful episode in American history, and poses questions as urgent today as they were in the past.

As theatre makers for young audiences, it is our responsibility to provide a safe space to examine a scary world. The Journal of Ben Uchida: Citizen 13559 contains sensitive material including racial profiling against Japanese Americans, offensive racial slurs, and suicide of a parent.

We strive to teach our young people to be kind, empathetic, and fair. In the play, they will see examples of offensive racial slurs and racial profiling, making them uncomfortable. Those scenes are representations of the horrific reality of how unfair and damaging racial discrimination can be, and with your assistance, we hope to guide our young audience to understand that this kind of behavior is never acceptable – not then, not now. In the play, after several months of imprisonment, Mr. Uchida, Ben’s father, is changed. After prolonged abuse and desperation within the camp, Mr. Uchida dies by suicide. The creative team is approaching this moment with extreme care and attention. This part of the play is theatricalized through shadow imagery. The moment is potent but not graphic. We want to advise, even with the thoughtful curating of the creative team, this moment, like the scene with racial slurs may cause discomfort. We realize that these topics, and these words, will be upsetting to adults and students alike, but is a reminder to all of us never to accept such injustice.

Theatre allows us to consider powerful alternatives to the realities we see. We have several community outreach strategies happening, including post-play discussions on 2/8 and 2/18; as well as four community dinners to encourage family-to-family dialogue. We encourage you to attend these events as a way to engage with our community and thoughtfully reflect on and process this experience. Our Active Audience Guide will be available online with a complete synopsis and further contextualizing. Additionally we have added resources to this letter to navigate these challenging moments.

Thank you for supporting this production and SCT as we endeavor to build a better world for our children. As Martin Luther King stated, “There is another element that must be present in our struggle that then makes our resistance and nonviolence truly meaningful. That element is reconciliation. Our ultimate end must be the creation of the beloved community.” – Martin Luther King, 4/15/60, Raleigh, NC

Respectfully,

Courtney Sale, Artistic Director

26 Children’s Books to Support Conversations on Race, Racism & Resistance:
https://medium.com/embrace-race/26-childrens-books-to-support-conversations-on-race-racism-resistance-15b189c1bab9

National Suicide Prevention Lifeline
24/7, free and confidential support for people in distress, prevention and crisis resources for you or your loved ones</em
1-800-273-8255

Crisis Text Line: 741741
https://suicidepreventionlifeline.org/

Suicide Prevention Resource Center
https://www.sprc.org/states/washington

American Foundation for Suicide Prevention
https://afsp.org

One America: OneAmerica advances the fundamental principals of democracy and justice at the local, state and national levels by building power within immigrant communities in collaboration with key allies.
https://www.weareoneamerica.org/civil-liberties-and-civil-rights