YOUNGEST ONE

New York: Viking Press, 1962. Near fine in very good plus dust jacket.. Scarce first edition of the story of how Yashima's daughter Momo makes friends with a painfully shy little boy, with an original watercolor by the artist. Taro Yashima, real name Jun Iwamatsu, was an antifascist activist in addition to an artist; he met his wife Mitsu in the Japanese Proletarian Artists' League. After being arrested and tortured by the Japanese government for their activism, they fled to America; they took on their pseudonyms when they were hired by the Office of War Information, and later the Office of Strategic Services, to protect their family still living in Japan. They produced anti-military propaganda for Japanese consumption in various forms throughout World War II, including illustrating handbills for dropping over battlefields.
Yashima began writing children's books for Momo, the couple's American-born daughter. While these were originally recollections life as a child in Japan, as Momo grew, he began writing stories about her American childhood. The shy child in YOUNGEST ONE recalls the main character of Yashima's earlier Caldecott Honor title CROW BOY, usually interpreted as being on the Autism spectrum. 8.25'' x 9.25''. Original orange publisher's cloth binding with black stamped titles and designs. Original color pictorial dust jacket, unclipped ($2.75). Color pictorial endpapers of a child's doodle. Illustrated in color throughout. 33 pages. Original watercolor of two birds soaring over a nest with a speckled egg inside, signed and stamped by Yashima and dated 1964. Very mild scuffing and light edgewear to dust jacket; several tiny closed tears to edges, two closed with tape to verso. Spine ends of book lightly bumped, tiy tape-closed tear to lover margin of page 19/20. A sharp, vibrant copy.