Up, Up, Ever Up! by Anita Yasuda

Up, Up, Ever Up! is the story of Junko Takei, a Japanese woman determined to be a mountain climber.

Junko grew up under the sakura trees on her mountain, dreaming of climbing. At the age of ten, Junko along with her friends, climbed Mount Chausu. On their climb they encountered hot springs, strong smells, and boulders. 

When she eventually left Miharu for the city of Tokyo, Junko continued to long for the mountains. She was able to join a mountaineering club that accepted women. Each weekend Junko laced on her boots and joined other climbers heading up mountains. In her adventures, Junko met someone who also loved climbing. They married and had a family.

As her family grew, Junko , along with other women climbers planned an expedition to Mount Everest. At this time, no woman had succeeded in climbing the world's highest mountain. 

Discussion

Junko Ishibashi was born September 22, 1939 in Miharu, a town located in Fukushima Prefecture, Japan. She was the third youngest of seven daughters. When she was ten years old, Junko developed a love of climbing on a school trip to Mount Nasu (also known as Mount Chausu) in Tochigi Prefecture. Junko loved the mountain landscapes she encountered on the climbs. However, climbing was an expensive sport and one that was male dominated so Junko did not undertake many climbs while a high school student.

She studied at Showa Women's University from 1958 to 1962, earning a degree in American and English Literature. After graduating Junko joined several climbing groups which were for men only. Although some members were not welcoming, Junko was able to climb all the major mountains in Japan including Mount Fiji. 

In 1966 Junko married Masanobu Tabei who she had met during a climb on Mount Tanigawa. She was twenty-seven years old. Junko and Masanobu eventually had two children. In 1969, Junko founded a women's climbing club, Joshi-Tohan Club. She formed the club mainly as a result of how she was treated by men in the climbing clubs. The first expedition the Joshi-Tohan Club undertook was to successfully climb Annapurna III in May of 1970. They were the first women and Japanese to summit the mountain. 

In 1971, the Joshi-Tohan Club applied for a permit to climb Mount Everest but it wasn't until 1975 that the club received a place in the formal climbing schedule. The Mount Everest team of fifteen members was led by Eiko Hisano and used the same route that Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay took in 1953. Two of the women were mothers, while many others had professional jobs. They encountered opposition as they raised funds for the trip. They were able to begin their climb in 1975, after years and months of fund-raising and training. On May 4, while camping at 20,000 ft, an avalanche struck, burying Tabei and four fellow climbers. They were dug out by the Sherpas accompanying the expedition. Tabei was injured in this accident but recovered and was able to resume the climb.

Tabei was chosen by Hisano to make the final ascent to the peak, after altitude sickness left the team with only enough oxygen tanks for one woman to make the climb. Tabei along with her sherpa guide Ang Shering, reached the summit of Mount Everest on May 16, 1975. She was the first woman to summit Everest, and only the thirty-sixth person to do so. 

By 1992, Junko Tabei became the first woman to complete the Seven Summits, climbing Kilimanjaro in 1980, Aconcagua in 1987, Denali in 1988, Elbrus in 1989, Mount Vinson in 1991, and Puncak Jaya in 1992. Throughout the 1990's and into the early 2000's, Tabei continued to take part in many all women's mountaineering expeditions. 

In later years, Junko Tabei advocated for  the conservation of mountain ecosystems like that of Mount Everest. She completed post-doctorate studies at Kyushu University with special focus on the mounting human waste being left on Everest and other mountains by climbers. Diagnosed in 2012 with cancer of the peritoneum, Junko Tabei passed away in 2016.

Up, Up, Ever Up! offers younger readers an engaging introduction to the remarkable life and accomplishments of  mountaineer, author, teacher, conservationist and mother, Junko Tabei. Yasuda captures the determination and quiet perseverance of Tabei as she turned her childhood love of the mountains into a lifelong passion. She was able to overcome the resistance of those who told her women did not belong in mountaineering, forging a path, step by step, for those women who would come after. Tabei, who was a modest person and uncomfortable with the fame her accomplishments brought, was able to use her notoriety to help the people of Nepal and to advocate for more responsible mountaineering practices and tourism. Tabei was also one of few women who attended university, at a time when women were discouraged from seeking a higher education. Tabei's motto was "Do not give up. Keep on your quest!"

Portraying Junko Tabei's journey upwards are the lovely illustrations done by Japanese illustrator, Yuko Shimizu. The illustrations for Up, Up, Ever Up! were rendered using "a Japanese calligraphy brush that was specifically made for Buddhist sutra and black India ink to make drawings on watercolor paper." These were then coloured digitally using Adobe Photoshop. Like Junko Tabei, Shimizu's mother also attended Showa Women's University.

Up, Up, Ever Up! is a must-read for young girls as an encouragement to follow their dreams, even when they seem especially impossible! Yasuda has included an Author's Note, a Timeline, a Glossary, and a detailed Bibliography for further reading.

Book Details:

Up, Up, Ever Up! by Anita Yasuda

New York: Clarion Books    2024

Sea Without A Shore by Barbara Rosenstock

Sea Without A Shore explores the unique world of the Sargasso Sea, the only sea without a shore.  It is located hundreds of miles into the Atlantic Ocean and is saltier and warmer than the surrounding ocean.

It seems like an ocean desert except there are rafts of Sargassum, which is not a plant but an algae. It grows stipes and blades and has gas-filled globes which keep the weed on the ocean surface.

The Sargassum grows from a small branch that has broken away and as it does so, tiny creatures come to live on it: "...bryozoans, feathery hydroids and spiraled tube worms" that feed on the microscopic life. There are "rubbery snails, waving anemones and spongy nudibranchs" that stalk and eat. 

The floating Sargassum offers " a place for wandering creatures to explore: pinching crabs, skittering shrimp, buggy amphipods." They scavenge, eating dead and living plants and animals, cleaning up the weeds."  This allows young creatures like "pointy swordfish, stocky jacks, and blunt-nosed mahi mahi to grow as they eat tiny bits of food that falls off the weed."  

The Sargassum also contains strange creatures like "...toothless pipefish, riffling flatworm, and crawling frogfish."  The pipefish sucks up amphipods, while the frogfish lure's it's prey, which it swallows whole.

There is life both above and below but the Sargassum is a home to a diverse community.

Discussion

Sea Without A Shore tells the story of how a new Sargassum seaweed fragment develops a growing community. Author Barbara Rosenstock was motivated to research the Sargasso Sea after encountering tangled seaweed on a beach in the Dominican Republic.

The Sargasso Sea encompasses an area that is two thousand miles long and seven hundred miles wide. It takes it's name from the Sargassum seaweed that is free floating and that reproduces "vegetatively" - that is without seeds or spores. The Sargasso Sea has no land borders. Instead its borders are four ocean currents: to the west the Gulf Stream, to the north the North Atlantic current, to the east the Canary Current, and to the south the North Atlantic Equatorial current. 

In her Research Note, Rosenstock writes that she and illustrator, Katherine Roy met with oceanographers, Dr. Kerry Whittaker assistant professor at Corning School of Oceanography, Maine Marine Academy and Dr. Robbie Smith, curator, Bermuda Natural History Museum,  in Bermuda to research the Sargassum. Bermuda is the only landmass within the Sargasso Sea. The oceanographers took them to the Bermuda Aquarium, Museum and Zoo to view the ocean life exhibits. They also examined fresh Sargassum to see the various sea creatures that live in the weed.

Based on her research, Rosenstock realized that she could not feature all the life in the Sargasso Sea into one picture book. Instead, she presents a simplified story of this open ocean ecosystem, highlighting both its diversity and how life within the Sargassum is interconnected. Rosenstock employs short descriptive phrases to describe the various sea creatures and these descriptions are accompanied by the beautiful illustrations by Katherine Roy. 

Rosenstock has included an map of the Sargasso Sea framed by the sea life mentioned in the book. Readers can return to the illustrations to locate these creatures as they are mentioned in the picture book. There is also a short Afterword by Dr. Sylvia Earle, a former chief scientist of NOAA, and currently president and chairman of Mission Blue, an Explorer-in-Residence at the National Geographic Society. There are full colour photographs of a cluster of Sargassum and of the Sargassum frogfish, a Research Note by the author, a note on Too Much Sargassum?, and a list of Sources.

The Sargasso Sea is believed to have existed for at least ten thousand years and its continued may depend on future generations knowing and understanding this unique ocean ecosystem.

Book Details:

Sea Without A Shore, Life in the Sargasso by Barbara Rosenstock

New York: Norton Young Readers     2024