About
Mia Wenjen blogs at PragmaticMom.com. She is the President and Co-Founder ReadYourWorld.org, a nonprofit that puts diverse children’s books into the hands of readers. Her picture books include Barbed Wire Between Us, The Traveling Taco, We Sing From the Heart, and Fortune Cookies for Everyone! published by Red Comet Press; Food for the Future, published by Barefoot Books; and Sumo Joe, published by Lee and Low.
Honors for her books include: ALSC Notable Children's Book, Carter G. Woodson Book Award Honoree, Orbis Pictus Recommended Book for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children, Massachusetts Book Award Long List, Julia Ward Howe Prize for Children's Literature Winner, California Eureka Non-Fiction Award Honor Book, Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People Winner, Bank Street Best Children's Books of the Year, and Junior Library Guild Gold Selection.
To learn more, check out her website, MiaWenjen.com, and follow her on social media @pragmaticmom.
Featured Work
Barbed Wire Between Us
A powerful reverso poem about two girls separated by barbed wire and 80 years of history Barbed Wire Between Us is a powerful reverso poem that tells two deeply resonant stories across time. It begins with a Japanese American girl sent to an internment camp in Oklahoma during World War II. Read in reverse, it reveals the journey of a Latina girl detained in the very same camp decades later, during the U.S. policy of migrant family separation. Harrowing and emotionally charged, this poetic narrative compels us to confront a haunting question: What have we truly learned in the past 80 years about how we treat the most vulnerable among us? With haunting symmetry and striking parallels, Barbed Wire Between Us is a moving meditation on justice, memory, and the echoes of history that still shape our present.
⭐ Starred review from Kirkus
⭐ Starred review from Publishers Weekly
Kirkus: The Most Anticipated Children's Books of Spring 2026
Other Works
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Postcards from Malcolm X: How Yuri Kochiyama Became a Civil Rights Activist
2026
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Fortune Cookies for Everyone! (Smithsonian): The Surprising Story of the Tasty Treat We Love to Eat
2025
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The Traveling Taco: The Amazing and Surprising Journey of Many of Your Favorite Foods
2025
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We Sing From the Heart: How The Slants® Took Their Fight for Free Speech to the Supreme Court
2024
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Boxer Baby Battles Bedtime!
2024
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Food for the Future: Sustainable Farms Around the World
2023
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Sumo Joe
2019
Awards and Recognition
- ALSC Notable Children's Book 2025 Carter G. Woodson Book Award Middle Level Honoree Orbis Pictus Recommended Book for Outstanding Nonfiction for Children 2024 Julia Ward Howe Prize for Children's Literature Winner California Eureka Non-Fiction Award Honor Book Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People Winner (from National Council for the Social Studies and Children's Book Council) Bank Street Best Children's Books of the Year 2025 Recommended Reading for the Social Justice Literature Award 2025 (International Literacy Association) Pennsylvania Mountain Laurel Book Award Nominee 2026-27 Junior Library Guild Gold Selection ⭐ Starred review from School Library Journal! Junior Library Guild Gold selection Massachusetts Book Award Long List dPICTUS 100 Outstanding Picture Books of 2023 Chicago Library's Best of the Best 2023 INDIES Book of the Year Awards Finalist Green Earth Book Award Long List Nautilus Silver Winner, Nonfiction Children's Picture Book Sunshine State Young Read
