Hailing from Kenmore, Washington, Newbery Honor-winning author Kirby Larson will be visiting Juneau to speak at local schools and to attend a book signing for her young adult, historical novel \u201cDash,\u201d which won the Scott O\u2019Dell for historical fiction. It\u2019s a tale about a Japanese-American girl who is separated from her beloved dog Dash when her family is placed in the Minidoka internment camp during World War II.<\/p>\n
The book is inspired by the real story of Mitsue \u201cMitsi\u201d Shiraishi. Mitsi was separated from her dog Chubby when she was sent to an internment camp run by Gen. John L. DeWitt. The camp didn\u2019t allow pets, so her neighbor kept the dog and wrote a diary of Chubby\u2019s first week without Mitsi for her as if Chubby himself wrote the entries. The rules at the camp changed a year later and Mitsi and Chubby were reunited.<\/p>\n
The Empty Chair Project and the National Park Service are co-sponsoring Larson\u2019s visit. Both organizations have purchased copies of \u201cDash\u201d for school use and also a generous collection of other fiction and non-fiction books to be available in what is called The Empty Chair Collection.<\/p>\n
I was able to do a short Q&A with Larson about her work before her arrival to Juneau. These are her responses.<\/p>\n
What prompted you to write about the Japanese-American World War Two internment in \u201cDash\u201d?<\/strong><\/p>\n I grew up in Seattle and didn\u2019t learn about the Japanese American incarceration until I was in college. It was shocking to think that I could have grown up around people whose families had been impacted and never heard a word about it. This topic has been a passion of mine ever since and, when I learned the story of Mitsue \u201cMitsi\u201d Shiraishi, I knew I had to tell this story.<\/p>\n Why do you think writing about the Japanese-American interment during World War Two is so important, especially for young people?<\/strong><\/p>\n I travel all over the U.S. (and the world!) talking to people of all ages about my books and it continues to amaze me that there are people who still do not know this story. I was recently in Texas and once again heard from a group of librarians \u2014 smart, well-educated folks \u2014 that they knew very little about this slice of American history. Ignorance of such stories may mean we repeat them.<\/p>\n Can you tell me what brought you to visit Juneau and speak at local schools?<\/strong><\/p>\n I am being brought to the schools as part of a National Park Service grant, inspired by the Empty Chair project. Even though the timing was difficult for me, I could not turn down this invitation. I think Mitsi would\u2019ve been so pleased.<\/p>\n What do you hope children will learn from researching and writing about Japanese-Americans from Juneau?<\/strong><\/p>\n Because my audience is primarily children, it\u2019s often assumed that I write to teach kids something. I don\u2019t. I write to explore questions I have about this messy marvelous world we live in. And, if in answering those questions, I inspire kids (and other readers!), to think and wonder, I am pleased.<\/p>\n How much did you know about the Japanese-American internment in Minidoka before writing \u201cDash,\u201d and how much did you have to do to write the book?<\/strong><\/p>\n I actually knew a decent amount about Minidoka from researching a previous book for the Dear America series for Scholastic \u201cThe Fences Between Us: The Diary of Piper Davis,\u201d but I knew very little about Camp Harmony, where a good portion of \u201cDash\u201d takes place. That took a little more digging. I am so grateful to Louis Fiset, author of \u201cCamp Harmony: Seattle\u2019s Japanese Americans and the Puyallup Assembly Center.\u201d In writing that book, he pieced together a map of the camp from a variety of sources. He generously shared that map with me, a complete stranger, without a moment\u2019s hesitation. And, of course, I am eternally grateful to Mitsi\u2019s family for sharing family photos, letters, journals and other ephemera.<\/p>\n Have you visited Minidoka before? Were you able to speak with people who were at the internment camps?<\/strong><\/p>\n I have not visited Minidoka but I have interviewed people who\u2019d been at the camps. I also dug deep into the University of Washington archives; took advantage of the materials at Densho.org (Densho is a foundation dedicated to preserving incarceration stories); as well as read the diary of the Superintendent of Education at Minidoka, Minidoka newsletters, old newspapers, etc. I am compulsive about in-depth research. Even though \u201cDash\u201d won the prestigious Scott O\u2019Dell Historical Fiction prize, the \u201cprize\u201d I cherish most is the email I received from a woman who\u2019d been at both Camp Harmony and Minidoka as a teen; she said I\u2019d written Dash as if I\u2019d been in those places. There is no higher praise than that.<\/p>\n What was the most difficult aspect of writing this novel?<\/strong><\/p>\n Every novel poses its own set of problems. Since I am not Japanese American, it was all the more important to draw on trusted resources \u2014 like Mitsi\u2019s daughter-in-law, Judy Kusakabe\u2014 to make sure I got the story right. But ultimately I felt such a sense of love and connection to Mitsi (who, sadly, passed long before I found her story) that I believed I could do her story justice.<\/p>\n This is the second book you\u2019ve written about a child and their friendship with their dog during World War Two. What has made you interested in exploring humans\u2019 relationships with their furry friends during this time period in your writing?<\/strong><\/p>\n It\u2019s important to me to find a way to connect today\u2019s readers with yesterday\u2019s stories. Dogs are the perfect connector! I mean, really. Who doesn\u2019t like dogs? My readers \u2014kids and adults alike\u2014 sure seem to love them. The response to \u201cDuke\u201d and \u201cDash\u201d has been so positive, Scholastic asked me to write two more books in the series. \u201cLiberty\u201d comes out in September 2016 and \u201cBear\u201d in September 2017.<\/p>\n Any general comment you\u2019d like to make about \u201cDash\u201d or your trip to Juneau?<\/strong><\/p>\n I am indebted to Mary Tanaka Abo, whose family is critical part of the Empty Chair Project; Margie Shackelford, chairperson of the Empty Chair Project; Brent Fischer, Director of Juneau Parks and Recreation; JoAnn Jones, a teacher at Auke Bay Elementary; and Julie Leary, a teacher at Harborview Elementary, for working so hard to bring me to Juneau. I can\u2019t wait to meet the students of Auke Bay and Harborview! And thank you, Clara, and the Empire staff, for caring enough about kids, kids\u2019 books and history to write this piece!<\/p>\n Larson will do a public book signing at the downtown location of Hearthside Books on Thursday, May 5 from 5-6 p.m. During the day she will speak at Auke Bay and Harborview elementary schools. More can be learned about Larson at kirbylarson.com.<\/em><\/p>\n The Empire is also interviewing Jamie Ford, author of \u201cHotel at the Corner of Bitter and Sweet\u201d who is coming to town as part of the same Empty Chair Project and the National Park service to speak at local schools.<\/em><\/p>\n \u2022 Contact Clara Miller at 523-2243 or at clara.miller@juneauempire.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Hailing from Kenmore, Washington, Newbery Honor-winning author Kirby Larson will be visiting Juneau to speak at local schools and to attend a book signing for her young adult, historical novel \u201cDash,\u201d which won the Scott O\u2019Dell for historical fiction. It\u2019s a tale about a Japanese-American girl who is separated from her beloved dog Dash when […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":429,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_stopmodifiedupdate":false,"_modified_date":"","wds_primary_category":7,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[],"yst_prominent_words":[],"class_list":["post-27293","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27293","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/429"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=27293"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27293\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=27293"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=27293"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=27293"},{"taxonomy":"yst_prominent_words","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.juneauempire.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/yst_prominent_words?post=27293"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}