What did WWII look like in Hawaii if you were Japanese? It was different than anywhere else in the US in some ways that surprised me, yet the same in others.

Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson is a Japanese American author-illustrator who grew up in both America and Japan. She now lives in California in a house filled with three generations of family, two languages, and countless books and art supplies. She’s the author-illustrator of The Mochi Makers and Shell Song.You can learn more about her at her website or follow her on Instagram.

SHELL SONG is a nonfiction picture book written and illustrated by Sharon about her family. It focuses primarily on her grandfather and his experiences in Hawaii during WWII. He was a Japanese American who would become interned at one of Hawaii’s camps and never get to meet Sharon’s father (as his wife was pregnant when he was interned) until he was several years older. While there is a thread of sadness to this story (as only the worst times of our history can weave), the title focuses on something altogether different: sea shells. To Sharon’s grandfather, these became a sign of hope in the darkest of times and were passed down through generations to Sharon herself. What a treasure!

Welcome Sharon!

Me: Can you tell us a little bit about your creative journey? When did you start creating art and/or writing picture books? How did that lead to where you are now as the author-illustrator of this book?

Sharon: I’ve been making art and writing for most of my life, but I started the process of making picture books during the COVID-19 pandemic while I was also recovering from cancer. In my debut picture book, The Mochi Makers, a little girl and her grandmother make Japanese rice cakes together in a celebration of food traditions, family, and love. I wrote the first drafts of that story in the midst of cancer treatment complications when I was artificially fed through a tube in my arm and unable to eat anything by mouth for several months.

Partly because of my amazing publishing team at Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane Books, I was able to find a sense of my own storytelling and artmaking style during the creation of The Mochi Makers, and this naturally led into the storytelling and artmaking for Shell Song. I knew that a layer of family artifacts and fabrics would be in the art for Shell Song. These two books are very different in subject matter, but they both come from my heart and are deeply tied to my family stories.

This year, I’ve had the honor of sharing Shell Song with audiences in Hawai’i, where my family story took place. I had the chance to visit the Honouliuli National Historic Site, where my grandfather was unjustly incarcerated more than 80 years ago, and because this year marks the 10^th anniversary of the Honouliuli National Historic Site being designated a national park, I had the chance to share my grandfather’s story at the Honouliuli National Historic Site’s 10^th anniversary events including events at bookstores, the Bishop Museum, and Pearl Harbor, as well as in interview on Hawai’i Public Radio and on a TV program called “Stories of Hawai’i” on Hawai’i News Now.

In Hawai’i, I was also able to visit my grandfather’s gravesite in Hilo, Hawai’i, as well as both the Honouliuli National Historic Site and Sand Island, the two locations where my grandfather was wrongfully incarcerated during World War II. Launching Shell Song has also very much felt like the chance to honor my grandfather’s story.

Me: Wow! That’s incredible. I also didn’t realize that Hawaii interned Japanese American individuals instead of families. What a powerful family history you have! What gave you the idea to write a picture book about it?

Sharon: I inherited my grandfather’s shell collection when I was about 10 years old. These were shells my grandfather had collected at Sand Island Detention Camp and Honouliuli Internment Camp during World War II while unjustly incarcerated as a Japanese American. He had died at only age 49, long before I was born, so I never had the chance to meet him or hear his story directly from him, but even at that age, I understood that my grandfather’s shells held a precious story.

When I was in college, my grandmother entrusted me with her handwritten autobiography and poems that documented my grandfather’s story. I had the honor of translating my grandmother’s body of work as my senior honor’s project in college. When I started working on children’s books, I realized that my grandfather’s shells were the key to telling this story in a way that even young readers could understand. 

Me: I love the illustrations you did for this book. The collage approach with real world items is so magical and powerfully used here! Can you talk about your illustration process a little bit? What media did you use to create the illustrations in this book? Are you mainly a traditional or digital illustrator (or a blend of both)? 

Sharon: My process for this book involved both traditional and digital techniques. I started with pencil sketches and washes of color, and then I added layers and layers of texture from family heirlooms, historical artifacts and fabrics, including photos of actual soil from the two incarceration camps my grandfather was in, my grandfather’s shells, fabric from my grandmother’s wedding kimono, fabric from my elderly father’s wardrobe, and textiles created by my grandmother. In the art, I attempted to contrast the warmth of the home scenes with the harsh conditions of the incarceration camp scenes.

Me: I have to ask! I noticed the strong use of yellow all throughout your story (including those beautiful end papers). I read somewhere that yellow has significance in Japanese culture of courage, nobility, and positive energy. Did you know that? Is that why you used it in almost every spread of your book (except the incarceration scenes)?

Sharon: The reason I used this golden yellow throughout this book was very personal. I had always seen my grandparents’ wedding photo in black and white, but it turned out that one of my uncles still had my grandmother’s wedding kimono. When I saw a photo of the kimono for the first time, I was stunned to discover that the bottom panel of this kimono was an ornately-patterned, brilliant golden yellow! I actually had the chance to visit my uncle a few months ago and finally had the chance to see my grandmother’s gorgeous wedding kimono in person for the first time!

I used the initial photos of this wedding kimono to create the golden yellow wallpaper in the home scenes of Shell Song. And I also used it in the endpapers along with a layer of my pencil sketches of my grandfather’s shells. I wanted this golden yellow to represent the warmth and joy of home and family in my book.

Additionally, one of my precious treasures is a golden yellow baby dress that my grandmother crocheted for me. She actually made matching yellow dresses for me and my two cousins who are close in age to me. I used this baby dress for the color and texture of the grandmother’s sweater in The Mochi Makers, and in Shell Song, it makes a reappearance as a throw on the arm chair. I suppose you could say that this golden yellow color has comes to symbolize my grandmother’s warmth and joy for me personally too. My grandmother was a descendant of samurai warriors (and further back, an ancient Japanese emperor) and was, in fact, courageous, noble, and full of positive energy, and so the symbolism of yellow more broadly in Japanese culture seems very fitting. 

Me: The seashells woven all throughout the story are such a powerful image and poetical metaphor of hope. What made you decide to focus on them in this story? Were they always there from the beginning in your very first draft, or were they included later in revision?

Sharon: My grandfather’s shells had traveled with me through the years, and when I realized that they were the key to telling this story, Shell Song came to me almost whole. The title and probably 70% of the words were there from the first draft. The creation process of this book involved staying focused on the core titular symbols of this story, which my brilliant editor, Danielle Collins, identified as “shell” and then “song,” in that order of importance. We tried to keep the shells, which are tangible objects children love and can relate to, at the forefront, with the metaphor of song as the second layer of my grandfather’s story within the larger context of Japanese American incarceration. I often describe it as creating a simple melody line of a story as opposed to a complex orchestra. Shell Song is simply my grandfather’s story as carried to me in his shells.

Me:  It can be hard to focus on history’s more painful moments. Some people shy away from them. Yet here you are baring you and your family’s personal story for all to see. That alone take such courage! Why is telling this story important to you? Why share it with young readers?

Sharon: The Japanese American incarceration during World War II is a challenging, complex, and diverse story. But my grandfather’s story is just one of many stories from the incarceration camps. Around 2,000 Japanese Americans in Hawai’i and more than 125,000 Japanese Americans throughout the United States were forced into prison camps on suspicion of being spies for Japan. The majority of these Japanese Americans, like my grandfather, were U.S. citizens by birth. In 1983, the official bipartisan Presidential commission determined that the incarceration of Japanese Americans was not a result of “military necessity but race prejudice, war hysteria, and a failure of political leadership.” No Japanese American was ever convicted of spying for Japan. I believe there are important and timely lessons for us in this history.

I don’t think of it as courageous to share my family story. My grandfather was an innocent young husband and father when he was unjustly incarcerated. I’m grateful to have the chance to honor my grandfather’s story in this book. His story and the injustice he and many others endured deservesds            to be more widely known. It is sometimes our responsibility as storytellers to pick up the stories of those who came before us and tell them in our own voices, even when they may be painful stories, because otherwise these voices fall silent.

I wanted to write Shell Song simply enough that children would be able to understand the core concepts that include fairness, family, loneliness, and hope, and I included a fairly in-depth back matter with historical context that I hope older readers and adults will be able to refer to in answering questions that children may have.

Children need all kinds of stories. They need stories that reflect the people and world that they know, and equally, they need stories that introduce them to worlds that they may not know themselves. This is how empathy begins, I think. War, for example, is a reality that some children know in heartbreaking detail in their own lives. Children who are privileged enough to not have experienced war themselves have the chance to grow in empathy when they understand that it is a reality other children may be living right now.

Me: That is sadly so true. Any advice for other aspiring picture book writers and/or illustrators?

Sharon: Sometimes our most precious stories have been growing in our hearts for years and years. It takes time for those stories to reveal themselves to us sometimes. As is the case with many parts of the creative journey, we need to gift patience and grace to our stories and to ourselves as creators. Sometimes the creative journey is slow, but it is also a way of living, and personally, I think that even the days when we are not necessarily putting words or pigments down on paper are adding to the well from which our best stories flow.

I love that. Great advice Sharon! Thank you so much for stopping by my blog today.

Dear readers, this book published in April. It’s a true story, focused on history, honoring the past, and full of hope for a better future. If you haven’t yet had the chance to track down a copy of this book, trust me when I say you won’t want to miss it.