- Parents’ Choice Award
- 1998 American Library Association Notable Book
- Parenting Reading Magic Award
- Teachers’ Choices Award, and Notable Book for a Global Society – International Reading Association
- Bulletin Blue Ribbon Award
- Society of School Librarians International Best Books, K-6 Social Studies
- Texas Bluebonnet Award Master List
- National Council of Teachers of English Notable in Language Arts
- “Pick of the Lists” – American Bookseller
- “Editors’ Choice” – San Francisco Chronicle
- “Choices,” Cooperative Children’s Book Center
- Notable Books for Children – Smithsonian
- Notable Children’s Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies, NCSS/CBC
- Finalist, National Jewish Book Award
Summary: Living with his family at his consulate office in Kaunas, Lithuania, diplomat Chiune Sugihara, representing the country of Japan, is awakened one morning during July 1940 to see hundreds of Polish Jews crowded around his consulate and more still coming. Told through the eyes of oldest son Hiroki, he recounts events leading up to the agonizing decision that his father and family reached – do they help these refuges by writing them the visas they are asking for so they can escape the Nazis, even though the Japanese government has ordered Consul Sugihara not to? Or, do they not act and let these people die? The decision and act of Sugihara resulted in global-changing consequences. As the Jewish proverb at the beginning of the book states: “If you save the life of one person, it is as if you saved the world entire.”
“A stirring story.” – Starred Review, Publishers Weekly
“This story of honor, love, and compassion presents a view of history that is seldom found in history books. It should be purchased by every public and school library.” – School Library Journal
“Lee’s stirring mixed-media illustrations in sepia shades are humane and beautiful … The immediacy of the narrative will grab kids’ interest and make them think.” – Booklist
“ … finely crafted creative nonfiction.” – The Seattle Times
Toward the end of 1994, Yukiko Sugihara and her son Hiroki began telling their story via a photo exhibit titled “Visas for Life” – of their husband/father who, as a Japanese diplomat stationed in Lithuania in 1940, is credited with saving over 10,000 Polish Jews from the Holocaust. Liz Szabla, then editor at Lee & Low Books, suggested I do this story as a picture book. What? Nazis, genocide, the Holocaust in a children’s picture book? How? When we began to hear the story from Hiroki Sugihara’s point of view as a young boy during that time, we knew we had the workable vehicle for a picture book. There was hardly any information available on this man, family and story – as opposed to now – and I thought I would have to spend endless hours in libraries and archives. Then, in November 1995, Hiroki came to Seattle to speak at a synagogue and he placed most of my research in my hands, his self-published book of his mother’s memoirs, also called Visas for Life. That, and additional phone interviews with Hiroki, who lived in San Francisco during that time, led to this book.
Ken Mochizuki 