Barbed Wire Between Us: An Interview with Mia Wenjen
I have always maintained that many great picture books are poetry. I recently came across the picture book BARBED WIRE BETWEEN US. It is a story, a picture book and a poem written by Mia Wenjen, who is also known in the world of children’s literature as Pragmatic Mom. She has long been a wonderful advocate for diverse literature and an author herself. I was delighted to be able to chat with her about her latest creation.
Padma Venkatraman: I have heard that editors are often hesitant to edit poetry. What was the editorial process for this book - or did you revise on your own and submit a finished piece?
Mia Wenjen: I frequently use a private editor, Amy Benz of Tiny Tales Editing, to polish my manuscripts, especially if I get stuck and know it needs more work. In this case, I had worked on this manuscript for years, knowing it was too dark to be a children’s book. But when I finally figured out the reverso poem format, Amy helped me finalize the words.
Padma Venkatraman: My first picture book is coming out this year and it was fun to brainstorm about possible artists with my editor and watch the book come to life in a different way than I had imagined. What was your experience with helping narrow down/selecting the artist and how the art marries with your words?
Mia Wenjen: My publishers/editors usually suggest a single illustrator, and I always think it’s the perfect fit. In the case of Violeta Encarnación, my editor Mike Yuen-Killick told me that he had marked her on his Instagram for some time as an illustrator he wanted to work with. He told me that she told her agent to do anything it took to get this project. I told Mike that I loved that energy. I thought her illustrations were amazing, but I didn’t even realize the depth of visual storytelling. She told me that she found newspapers from 1942 and digitally folded them into origami cranes for the illustrations. That is above and beyond!
Padma Venkatraman: What inspired this book? It feels so urgent now.
Mia Wenjen: During Trump’s first administration, I saw the Japanese American grandmothers standing outside the detention camps, weaving origami cranes into the barbed wire fenders. They were there to stand witness to this modern-day atrocity because no one stood up for them during WWII. That was the story seed for me. Sadly, this is relevant today. I wish it were a story for the past.
Padma Venkatraman: You have created a work that feels both timely and timeless. Thank you and best of luck with it.
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, Fortune Cookies for Everyone!, The Traveling Taco, and We Sing From the Heart 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.
Buy a copy of Barbed Wire Between Us: https://bit.ly/41EHUsv
Padma Venkatraman is the internationally acclaimed author of The Bridge Home (Global Read Aloud; Walter Award winner), Safe Harbor (an ALA Notable Book), A Time To Dance (the first South-Asian-American novel-in-verse) and other novels. Her poetry has been published in Poetry Magazine and nominated for the Pushcart Prize.
Her debut picture book Faraway Family is scheduled for release in August, 2026.
