I am so excited to introduce Barbed Wire Between Us, the story of my heart. I think that I have worked on this picture book idea forever … or at least for 7 years. It all came together during the pandemic when I watched a Zoom event featuring picture book storytime at a Long Beach, California public library.
The book was Amah Faraway by Margaret Chiu Greanias, and even though I had a copy and even read it, I didn’t realize that it was a reverso poem until the librarian explained the poetry form to us.
All of a sudden, a light went on in my head, and I knew that I had to rewrite my manuscript in the reverso poem format, which was a free verse poem at that time. It turned out that I didn’t need to make many changes, but the reverso poem gave my picture book the structure that it needed. All of a sudden, it came to life.
The title also hit me months later while taking a walk. I had called it Behind Barbed Wire, which is a title used very commonly used to describe Japanese American Internment, the Japanese American Concentration camps here in the United States during WWII. The issue was that there were multiple adult titles with the same title.
Here’s more about Barbed Wire Between Us...
Barbed Wire Between Us by Mia Wenjen, illustrated by Violeta Encarnación
A powerful reverso poem about two girls separated by barbed wire and 80 years of history
Barbed Wire Between Us is a powerful reverso poem that tells two deeply resonant stories across time. It begins with a Japanese American girl sent to an internment camp in Oklahoma during World War II. Read in reverse, it reveals the journey of a Latina girl detained in the very same camp decades later, during the U.S. policy of migrant family separation. Harrowing and emotionally charged, this poetic narrative compels us to confront a haunting question: What have we truly learned in the past 80 years about how we treat the most vulnerable among us? With haunting symmetry and striking parallels, Barbed Wire Between Us is a moving meditation on justice, memory, and the echoes of history that still shape our present. [picture book, ages 7 and up]
And
now …
ta
da…
I’m so excited to show you the cover!
It releases March 31, 2026, and is published by Red Comet Press.
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The Traveling Taco:
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Bank Street College’s The Best Children’s Books of the Year
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Amazon / Signed or Inscribed by Me
I can’t wait to get this one for my classroom. One of my students said today that I need to “buy more books about the time like in When Baseball Saved Us and Diamond in the Desert.” I think this fits the bill.
What a powerful book! I’m looking forward to its release.
Incredible! This book sounds amazing and so powerful.