Ken Mochizuki
Children’s and young adult author Ken Mochizuki died September 20 at the age of 71 in Maple Valley, Wash., according to Asian American Media News. Mochizuki’s first picture book was published in 1993, Baseball Saved Us, illustrated by Dom Lee (Lee & Low).
The book appeared on Lee & Low’s debut list, and former publisher and co-founder Philip Lee offered insight on the book’s origin and how Mochizuki’s work helped define the mission of the publishing house. Lee’s late wife, Karen Chinn had worked with Mochizuki at the International Examiner, an Asian American Community Newspaper in Seattle and she introduced them. Lee told Mochizuki about a magazine article he’d read about Japanese Americans playing baseball while incarcerated during World War II and asked if he’d be interested in writing it as a nonfiction picture book.
Mochizuki agreed, putting his own spin on the story. “I decided I wanted to make it historical fiction and create a young hero who hits not only one home run during a clutch situation, but two!” the author wrote on his website.
Publisher Jason Low said the book, “…set the bar high for weighty subjects ….It helped redefine what stories could be told in a picture book format. The book has sold more than one million copies (so far) and acts as a cautionary tale for governments who sometimes enact crimes against their own citizens because of fear and prejudice.”
Mochizuki went on to publish three more books with Lee & Low, Heroes, illustrated by Dom Lee (Lee & Low, 1995) a fiction picture book exploring how one family deals with the painful legacy of war and prejudice; Passage to Freedom: The Sugihara Story, illustrated by Dom Lee (Lee & Low, 1997), a nonfiction picture book about a Japanese diplomat in Lithuania who helped thousands of Jews escape the Holocaust, and Be Water, My Friend, illustrated by Dom Lee (Lee & Low, 2006), a picture book biography of Bruce Lee.
Mochizuki also authored Beacon Hill Boys (Scholastic, 2002), a young adult novel set in 1972 Seattle about Japanese American high school students worried they’ll be drafted for the Vietnam war. Mochizuki shared on his website that he originally wrote the book as an adult novel, but after his success with the picture books, his agent Rosemary Stimola suggested the manuscript could work as a young adult novel, and suggested he read Walter Dean Myers, who could powerfully convey inner-city life without using a single four-letter word. “I didn’t miss those words, but it is as if they are still there. There are a number of themes running through Beacon Hill Boys, but I would say that one of the most prominent is that it is about the birth of the ‘Asian American’ identity and why it needed to be established.”
Rosemary Stimola shared a remembrance of Mochizuki on the agency website. In 1997, Liz Szabala, an editor at Lee & Low, told her Mochizuki was seeking representation and Stimola Literary Studio had newly opened. After a chat, Mochizuki became her first official client. “ I was always very proud Ken chose me to represent him and the coming-of-age and historical stories about being Japanese American in our country. The legacy of his work is strong and far reaching, even with organizational efforts to ban his books and keep them off the shelves in many schools and libraries. And I am humbled to have been a part of it. Thank you, Ken, and rest easy.”
Mochizuki’s most recent works for young readers are Those Who Helped Us, illustrated by Kiku Hughes (Wing Luke Museum/Chin Music Press, 2022), a graphic novel fiction/nonfiction hybrid commissioned by the Wing Luke Museum of the Asian Pacific American Experience in Seattle, focusing on the non-Japanese in the area who helped Japanese Americans during World War II. Mochizuki created a fictional character to witness actual events and people with sources cited in the endnotes.
His most recent book, Michi Challenges History: From Farm Girl to Costume Designer to Relentless Seeker of the Truth: The Life of Michi Nishiura Weglyn (Norton Young Readers, 2023) is a middle grade biography telling the story of a Japanese American fashion designer who became an activist, influencing the passage of the Civil Liberties Act of 1988, in which the U.S. government admitted that its treatment of Japanese Americans during World War II was wrong.
In addition to working as an author and journalist, Mochizuki also worked as an actor from 1976 to 1981, before returning to Seattle where he worked odd jobs before landing at a newspaper.
“As I tell students, being a newspaper journalist was good training to become a picture book writer, since both need to know how to say the most with the least amount of words. My goal was to become an adult fiction author at the time, but then I received that phone call during the summer of ’91 [from Philip Lee],” Mochizuki wrote on his website.
Gene Vosough
Paper engineer, designer, and art director Gene Vosough died on July 25, reported Shannon Maughan for Publishers Weekly. In the late 80s, Vosogugh worked as an art director at Ottenheimer Publishers, a book packager in Baltimore, before becoming senior designer at HarperFestival. From there he moved to Little Simon, where he worked with children’s author and paper engineer Robert Sabuda.
In 2007, Vosough began doing freelance work, including Birdscapes: A Pop-Up Celebration of Bird Songs in Stereo Sound by Miyoko Chu, illustrated by Julia Hargreaves, paper engineering by Gene Vosough, Renee Jablow and Andy Baron (Chronicle, 2008). He also created several pop-up books for Blues Clues, SpongeBob and Cheerios, as well as greeting cards.
Katie Cunningham
Children’s book publisher Katie Cunningham died on July 4, following complications from ovarian cancer. She was 43, reported Shannon Maughan for Publishers Weekly.
Cunningham began working at Candlewick in 2003 as assistant to Liz Bicknell, who became her mentor. Cunningham spent two decades at Candlewick, rising through the ranks to be named associate publisher in 2023. Projects she shepherded included Julián Is a Mermaid by Jessica Love (Candlewick, 2018), a Stonewall Book Award winner; Rescue and Jessica: A Life-Changing Friendship by Jessica Kensky and Patrick Downes, illustrated by Scott Magoon (Candlewick, 2018), which received a Schneider Family Book Award; and the debut novel Gather by Kenneth M. Cadow (Candlewick, 2023), a National Book Award finalist and a Printz Honor book.
Cunningham left Candlewick in late 2024, and was named publisher of Nosy Crow in March 2025.
Cynsational Notes
Gayleen Rabakukk holds an MFA in Writing for Children and Young Adults from Vermont College of Fine Arts and is currently a student in the Library Science Master’s program at the University of North Texas. She also has an undergraduate degree in Journalism from the University of Central Oklahoma. She has published numerous newspaper and magazine articles, and two regional interest books for adults. She is represented by Terrie Wolf of AKA Literary Management.
She works part-time as a Library Assistant at the Lago Vista Public Library, where she leads a book club for young readers. She teaches creative writing workshops and is a bookseller at Paper Bark Birch Books in Cedar Park, Texas. She loves inspiring curiosity in young readers through stories of hope and adventure. Follow her on Instagram and Bluesky.