The Bridges Yuri Built: How Yuri Kochiyama Marched Across Movements

Williams, making her picture book debut with a personal-feeling work about her great-grandmother, traces how Japanese American activist Yuri Kochiyama (1921–2014) became a civil rights ally, documentarian, and organizer. Born in San Pedro, Calif., Kochiyama was 20 when the 1941 bombing of Pearl Harbor occurred, after which her father was violently questioned and her family was sent to an Arkansas incarceration camp. There, she met Nisei soldier Bill Kochiyama and began corresponding with him when he went off to war. When other soldiers mentioned feeling lonely, the letter-writing campaign she organized reached thousands. After the war, the couple moved to Harlem, where Yuri joined the civil rights movement (“She knew how it felt to be denied freedom because of the color of her skin”). She attended meetings and protests, housed anyone passing through, and wrote letters to political prisoners, per a lengthy author’s note, “making connections between movements and identifying common sources of oppression.” Airbrush-style illustrations incorporate images of letters and envelopes, emphasizing the power of Yuri’s correspondence in her activism. An author’s note concludes. Ages 5–9. (Apr.)