Interview with Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu + Giveaway

Today we have on the blog an interview with Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu, author of SOMEWHERE AMONG, a beautiful and haunting debut novel in verse about an American-Japanese girl struggling with the loneliness of being caught between two worlds when the tragedy of 9/11 strikes an ocean away. Read on for the interview and a chance to win this lovely book!

somewhere among

What inspired SOMEWHERE AMONG?

Our life in Japan! I have lived and raised my children in a binational, bicultural, bilingual, multi-generational home in Tokyo for the past 24 years. Clashes, comedic scenarios and common ground have provided much introspection. Although I don’t see myself as a writer of Asian topics, there were a few things I wanted to share in children’s non-fiction magazine articles and picture books. I found it difficult to fill in the spaces of what American children know.

I started a children’s photo blog in 2006 when my youngest child was in fifth grade. That satisfied the desire to show modern Japan. I later started a novel set in Texas (my home state). After the earthquake and tsunami of 2011, I had to ground myself in Japan. Emotions and images and memories of our life and our nations’ shared history rushed into poems that turned into this story.

At the story’s center is a paper doll that a woman had handed me on the train in my early days here. The doll came with the message “May Peace Prevail on the Earth.” I had tried to write a picture book about that, but the story was too big for 32 pages.

The 2011 disaster spurred me to write about Japan and the paper doll was the inspiration and motivation to try to tell its story again.

What kind of research did you do to tell this story?

I had started out with what I remembered. Then after the first draft, I used news reports, newspaper articles, weather data, and websites like NASA’s. The storyline didn’t change much from the first drafts. Through revisions it was a matter of making sure the timeline was correct and layering details.

The school and family life details were inspired by but altered from our experience. My children went through the Japanese public system and we lived in a multi-generational home. I couldn’t have written this story without that experience. It would have been very shallow.

Hearing the story of 9/11 from the perspective of an American living overseas is fascinating. Is that something you planned from the beginning, or did it come out in the writing process?

I didn’t set out to write about 9-11. This story came about through grounding myself by reminiscing. Sitting down to write about our life and memories here, I couldn’t get very far before 9-11 came up.

However, the sinking of the Japanese fishing boat, the Ehime Maru actually came up first. That incident exemplified the struggle (I especially felt) to reconcile the history and tragedies that my children’s two nations share. I distinctly remember that sadness and the months of TV coverage. The fishing ship tragedy happened in February 2001.

So, through writing this story, I was dragged into dealing with 9-11 again. I was dealing with aftershocks at our Tokyo home and the grief of the tsunami damage from a distance. It was not easy to deal with this. I could have easily avoided writing this story.

What are some books of poetry or novels in verse you would recommend for kids?

Oh! I have to say that I have limited access to English books because of price and place. I cannot afford all the books I would love to buy and our local library only has two or three short shelves of Newbery winners. No verse novels.

The only verse novel I had read before I started Somewhere Among was Out of the Dust by Karen Hesse. Holly Thompson’s young adult novel, Orchards, had arrived just before the earthquakes of 2011. I knew it was about suicide so I didn’t get to read it until after the aftershocks and I had written my first draft. I discovered and read Susan Taylor Brown’s Hugging the Rock. I also learned of and read Thanhha Lai’s middle grade Inside Out and Back Again after it had won the Newbery. I read Jacqueline Woodson’s Brown Girl Dreaming last summer. All of those are wonderful.

Since attending Highlights Foundations Verse Novel workshop in 2012, I have read and enjoyed the work of instructors Virginia Euwer Wolf, Sonya Sones, and Linda Oatman High and attendees K.A. Holt, Sarah Tregay, and Madeleine Kuderick. There are future verse novelists from that group to watch out for.

Helen Frost, Margarita Engle, Mariko Nagai, Leza Lowitz and Holly Thompson’s books are on my wish list. There are many other verse novels I would love to read. Most of them are for young adults. I read and write mostly for middle grade readers 9-12 so middle grade novels are my first choice of purchase now.

Children’s poetry anthologies aren’t particularly age-specific. All anthologies and books by Lee Bennett Hopkins are great. My children loved You be Good I’ll be Night by Eve Merriam. Talking Like the Rain by X.J. Kennedy and Dorothy Kennedy. My favorite children’s poets are Joyce Sidman, Janet Wong, Helen Frost, Charles Ghigna, Gwendolyn Brooks, Elizabeth Coatsworth.

I enjoy the video interviews that Lee Bennett Hopkins and Renee La Tulippe produce about children’s poets. There are so many wonderful things done for poetry for children. Sylvia Vardell’s blog www.poetryforchildren.com . Poetry Minute for younger readers www.poetryminute.org and Poetry 180 for older readers www.loc.gov/poetry/180

 

Annie Donwerth-Chikamatsu lives in Tokyo, Japan. Her work has been published in Hunger Mountain, Highlights, Highlights High Five, Y.A.R.N., and other magazines. She received a grant from the Highlights Foundation to attend Chautauqua in 2009. Somewhere Among won the 2013 Writers’ League of Texas award in the middle grade category and is her debut novel.

For a chance to win a copy of SOMEWHERE AMONG, please leave a comment below by noon Eastern time on Monday, May 30th. If you tweet about the contest, we can give you an extra entry. Continental U.S. only, please (sorry! It’s the postage!).

Katharine Manning sighed her way through the lovely SOMEWHERE AMONG. She is a middle grade writer of dreamy fantasies and fast-paced soccer books. To see more of her raving about middle grade books, visit Kid Book List. You can also find her at www.katharinemanning.com and on Twitter.

Kate Hillyer on Wordpress
Kate Hillyer
Kate Hillyer writes, runs, and drinks plenty of tea in our Nation's Capitol. She is a poetry judge for the Cybils, and blogs here and at The Winged Pen. An essay she wrote appears in the anthology Raised by Unicorns. You can find her at www.katehillyer.com and on Twitter as @SuperKate.
16 Comments
  1. Loved this interview. I just read Up From the Sea…..and the concept of this story reminds me of that one. I see a pairing coming up in a display in my library. Thanks so much for bringing this story into the world. It’s important!

  2. LOVE seeing this interview. I recently read Up From the Sea…..and this book is one that reminds me of the emotion of that. Can’t wait to get my hands on it and into the hands of kids of my middle school library.
    And, I love the resources you cite in your interview….also some of my favorites.

  3. Annie, I loved the interview and I look forward to reading Somewhere Among, especially since we were also living abroad (England) when the 9/11 tragedy occurred. Congratulations!

  4. I am starting next year’s 6th grade reading with verse novels. This will be a great addition to the collection!

  5. Sounds like a wonderful read! Thanks!

  6. What a rich interview! Thanks for that. Somewhere Among sounds like an awesome book. Thanks for a chance to win and for telling me about the book.

  7. I would love to win it! I’m half Japanese and this sounds like a great story. There are so few Japanese American stories that are NOT about WWII.

  8. This is an intriguing post. Try Full Cicada Moon by Marilyn Hilton and Serafina’s Promise by Ann E. Burg – both great MG novels in verse.

  9. This looks awesome!

  10. My students would really enjoy this. I love that there have been several recent books written in verse form from diverse perspectives, such as The Red Pencil and Brown Girl Dreaming.

  11. Adding your book to my TBR list, Annie! And thank you for the shout-out–great to be included in the same sentence as poet-friends Joyce Sidman, Helen Frost, and Charles Ghigna. (Note: Sylvia’s blog address is PoetryforChildren.Blogspot.com. And YES: it is a fabulous resource!!!)

    • Thanks for the correction!

    • Thank you, Janet! And thank you for the link correction. I can’t believe I gave the wrong link for Sylvia Vardell’s Poetry for Children! I have been following her good work for years! I left out many favorite children’s poets too. Jane Yolen, Eileen Spinelli, Rebecca Kai Doltich, April Halprin Wayland… Also teachers, librarians,and readers please check out my website for links, photos, and resource information for SOMEWHERE AMONG. http://www.anniedonwerth-chikamatsu.com

      Thank you again, Kate Manning, for this opportunity!

  12. Great interview. Looking forward to reading the book!

  13. Looks fascinating!

  14. Oh my goodness, I had meant to put this book on my TBR list and somehow it slipped away. Can’t wait to read this. What a great interview!