Shizuye Takashima

Shizuye Takashima, also known as Shichan, was a Japanese-Canadian painter, writer, illustrator, and teacher born in Vancouver, the youngest of six children. At age eleven or thirteen, she and her family were forcibly interned in New Denver camp in British Columbia's interior following Pearl Harbor due to their Japanese ancestry. She later studied art at the Ontario College of Art, taught there, and authored the award-winning autobiographical book A Child in Prison Camp (1971) based on her experiences, along with illustrating Kenji and the Cricket.