Behind the Book: Shell Song by Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson

Written and illustrated by Sharon Fujimoto-Johnson, this book is about the incarceration of Japanese-American citizens, all told from the perspective of Sharon’s grandfather. Sharon gives us an inside look at the process behind creating this incredibly personal and important book.

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Shell Song is based on your grandfather’s experience in a Japanese-American incarceration camp in Hawaii. What inspired you to tell this story in picture book form?

When I was around 10 years old, my father gave me the shells that my grandfather had collected in Japanese American incarceration camps in Hawai’i during World War II. Although my grandfather had died long before I was even born, in a sense, his shell collection carried across generations and years the key to telling his story. These shells are tangible objects that my grandfather held in his own hands, and they are also symbols of intangible concepts like injustice, lost time, and maybe even hope.

Narrating my grandfather’s story from a grandchild’s perspective felt like the most authentic storytelling voice for me. This is a family story that I grew up with, after all. But because my grandfather died before I could hear his stories in his own voice, creating Shell Song also required me to step inside the story myself and walk through my grandfather’s experiences as closely as I could, as best I could imagine them. I truly believe that even young readers can understand the emotions in this story. And ultimately, making space for empathy and awareness in young readers is perhaps even more important than knowing the historical facts of this chapter of American history.

Were there any specific visual references, such as family photographs or archival materials, that guided your artwork?

I knew from the beginning of the creation process that my grandfather’s shells would carry this story and that these actual shells would be in the artwork. But this book was also created out of years of reading, research, and preserving my own family’s history. In a sense, I’ve been working on this book for more than 25 years.

When I was in college, my grandmother entrusted me with her handwritten Japanese autobiography and tanka poetry. For my multidisciplinary college thesis, I translated my grandmother’s body of work and created three hand-bound books showcasing her work. While creating Shell Song, I revisited many books on the Japanese American incarceration that I had read years ago in college and also read stacks of new research and scholarship that have been published since my initial deep dive into this topic.

I wrote the words of Shell Song while listening to a recording of a Chopin nocturne played on an old record player on loop. I imagined this simple, melancholy melody playing in the house on the day that my grandparents’ lives changed, and I imagined the echoes of the emotions in this melody reverberating through the story.

Your illustrations have a soft, dreamlike quality—can you share more about your artistic style and how you developed it?

I’m so grateful to my agent Anne Moore Armstrong at The Bright Agency for her enthusiastic support for Shell Song. I’m also so grateful to my editor, Danielle Collins, my art director, Lauren Rille, and my publisher, Allyn Johnston at Simon & Schuster/Beach Lane Books, for giving me the chance to tell my grandfather’s story. From start to finish, this dream team gave me the time and space in which to figure out how I wanted to tell this story and also nudged me when I needed the courage to get closer to the heart of the story. I cannot overstate how incredible it was to have such support during the creation of this book.

I am a mostly self-taught artist, and I think I would characterize my artistic style as visual storytelling from the heart. I try to embed my art with emotion, which I hope brings a sense of honesty and authenticity to my art. I wanted the artwork in Shell Song to feel soft enough to invite the reader to enter into the moment portrayed, and I wanted to layer the art with texture and patterns from family artifacts to add depth and meaning to this complex, layered story. I wanted to contrast the warmth of the early home scenes with the harsh conditions of the incarceration camps while carrying the through line of shells from home to incarceration camps, back to home, and through the generations.

Were there any elements of the book’s visual storytelling that evolved during the creative process?

I wanted to be both honest and respectful in telling my grandfather’s story. There were moments in this story when my initial instinct was to step back and let difficult scenes take place at a safe distance. But early in the sketching process, my art director encouraged me to not be afraid to get closer to the heart of the story. This was an astute observation on her part, and I’m so grateful for her gentle nudge to bring the reader in closer to the scenes and to also allow myself to get close enough to feel and convey these emotions in my artwork.

“Sharon’s beautiful prose captures her painful family history with such accessible poignancy. I love how her grandfather’s shells tell the story and keep this family’s song alive. What a gem of a picture book. I am so honored to represent Sharon.” - Sharon’s agent, Anne Moore Armstrong.

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Shell Song was published by Beach Lane Books, in the US on April 15th, 2025. Get your copy here! To work with Sharon, get in touch with her agent, Anne Moore Armstrong here.