39pp. Illustrated by Yashima. 9x11”, original cloth binding, lighty soiled, without dust Jacket.
Signed inscription and chop by Yashima on half-title page, with an original multi-color drawing of an Asian girl holding a fishing rod.
The last of Yashima's seven books of children’s fiction.
Escaping in the 1930s from militarist Japan, where he and his pregnant wife were arrested and tortured by the Japanese secret police for their anti-fascist sympathies, Yashima - his nom de guerre - came to America in 1939. During World War II, while a propagandist for American Intelligence, he wrote the autobiographic story of his ordeal, “picture books”, with minimal text. In 1953, he began writing and illustrating his award-winning children’s books.