This is an advance, uncorrected proof. Not for resale, duplication, or reposting. Please do not quote without comparison to the finished book.
This is an advance, uncorrected proof. Not for resale, duplication, or reposting. Please do not quote without comparison to the finished book.
This is an advance, uncorrected proof. Not for resale, duplication, or reposting. Please do not quote without comparison to the finished book.
To all our jiichans and baachans. —D.M.M.
To Nunziata: May the seasons on our farm offer a million signs of your ancestors’ love. —N.M.
For my family.
—L.T.
Text © 2025 David Mas Masumoto and Nikiko Masumoto
Illustrations © 2025 Lauren Tamaki
Photos courtesy of the Masumoto family
Book design by Melissa Nelson Greenberg and Lauren Tamaki
These images were created using acrylic ink, graphite, and Photoshop.
Published in 2025 by Abrams Books for Young Readers, an imprint of ABRAMS. All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, mechanical, electronic, photocopying, recording, or otherwise, without written permission from the publisher.
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Library of Congress Control Number: 2023950667
ISBN: 978-1-949480-29-0 eISBN: 979-8-88707-073-5 Printed in China
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Abrams® is a registered trademark of Harry N. Abrams, Inc.
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Cameron Kids Book
Abrams Books for Young Readers • New York
“Jiichan! Is it ready yet?” Midori asks.
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“Try one,” Jiichan answers. “What do you hear?”
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Midori begins to bite but can’t: Crunch!
“It’s too hard! When will it be soft and sweet like the peaches from last year?”
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“Good question,” Jiichan says. “We have to wait.”
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“You’ll know it’s ready when it tastes like a story,” he says.
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Midori looks confused. “But what does a story taste like?”
“A peach, like a story, needs time to grow,” Jiichan says.
“Green peaches are like our family’s ancestors when they first arrived in America.
Things weren’t ready.
They felt like strangers.
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Sometimes they didn’t know what to say.
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Patience.
Hard work.
Survival.
Bittersweet.
Have to wait to grow roots.”
Weeks later.
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Warmer temperatures.
Leaves dense.
Fruit changes colors.
“Is it ready yet?” Midori asks.
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“What do you see?”
“The peaches have turned yellow.” Jiichan asks, “But what kind of yellow?
Yellow like the sun?
Yellow like the flowers we leave on the obutsudan?
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Or golden yellow like our dog?”
Midori’s father picks a small peach and says, “Squeeze gently.”
“It still feels firm!” Midori says.
“Everywhere?” Jiichan questions.
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“What do you feel?”
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“There’s one spot near the suture—it’s beginning to feel different, a little soft.”
Dad adds, “Maybe this peach is like the beginning of our family farm: We begin by planting roots in America in one spot. Like the first trees we planted.”
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I feel change? Midori wonders.
Then hot weather.
Trees drink water.
Fruits grow fat.
“Let’s pick some,” her dad says.
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“Jiichan taught me that every peach is a story of all the hands that fill a bite with life,” Midori shares.
Farmers.
Workers.
Helpers.
Family.
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Chefs.
Food workers.
Home cooks.
They help to bring the farm from field to table.
People and nature working together.
“Is it ready?” Jiichan asks, handing Midori a peach.
Midori studies the peach. She sees a deep golden color.
“It glows . . . like summer!” she says.
Midori brings the peach to her nose.
“It smells so sweet, and it smells like the rich soil too!”
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Together they all take a big, fat bite.
Juice drips from their faces.
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Smiles and grins.
Midori closes her eyes, and the peach comes to life in all her senses.
The hot sun.
Egrets flying over pink blossoms in spring.
Workers on ladders tending to the trees.
Her whole family—ancestors she never met, grandparents as young people when they were just planting these orchards, parents sharing a peach together, and her brother too!
“It tastes like a story!” Midori shouts.
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Autumn leaves float to the earth.
Trees ready for rest.
Farmers reflect.
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Winter chill.
Sleep for orchards.
We say goodbye to Jiichan.
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Midori waits for warm weather.
She hears the sound of green peaches.
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She sees and feels the peaches change colors and begin to soften.
At the peak of harvest, she breathes in the sweetness and scent of the earth.
“It’s ready now,” she says.
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Midori picks two peaches and goes to the cemetery.
She sits on the grass and sets a peach on the headstone for her jiichan.
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She bites into a peach she brought for herself.
“Thank you, Jiichan. This peach is your story. This peach is our story. And now I understand . . .”
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This is an advance, uncorrected proof. Not for resale, duplication, or reposting. Please do not quote without comparison to the finished book.
Every peach is a story.
Have you ever tasted a peach (or another piece of fruit) like the one Midori tastes when it is ripe? These peaches are real! If you haven’t found a peach like this, we hope you experience something similar soon. There are so many flavors to explore in our gardens and farms.
The story of the peach comes from a true and deep connection between our family and the land we get to farm. My name is Nikiko Masumoto, and I’m one of the coauthors of this book. Both my dad (the other coauthor) and I grew up in the same place in rural California. Our farm is called the Masumoto Family Farm.
Working together as a family, we take care of trees and vines on our farm organically. We grow peaches, apricots, and nectarines. Have you tasted all of these fruits? Sometimes when you find these fruits in regular grocery stores, they are like the crunchy hard ones that Midori first tries. These fruits aren’t ready yet. But there are other farmers like us who wait and wait and wait for just the right moment to pick the fruit. Just like the jiichan in the story, my real jiichan and baachan taught me and my dad how to look for the signs and signals of a ripe fruit. It takes patience.
Like the jiichan in the story, my real jiichan and baachan have passed away. But we remember them through every peach and every harvest. To this day, I turn to my senses to guide me as a farmer: I listen to the orchards and the peaches by watching their color, carefully examining the subtle changes, and using my hands to feel the texture of the fruit. This method works best with older varieties because they were bred for flavor, not for redness or the ability to sit on a grocery store shelf for a long time.
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In addition to sharing the embodied knowledge of how to pick a peach, this story also explores themes and historical experiences of our family as descendants of immigrants from Japan and our journey to create a home in the United States. No single story can represent an entire collective of people, but many points of reference in this story connect with impactful historical events and circumstances for many Japanese American families whose histories overlap with similar timelines as our ancestors, the Masumoto and Sugimoto families.
Like many Japanese immigrants who came to the United States in the late 1800s and early 1900s, my first relatives arrived at a time when anti-Asian racism was growing. In other words, some people in the United States decided they didn’t like my ancestors just because they came from Asia. Have you ever experienced what it feels like to be unwelcome? It’s hurtful, and even worse, it can be scary.
In 1882, the first national immigration policy was passed by Congress—this was the Chinese Exclusion Act. This foundational law explicitly excluded Chinese immigrants from entering the country. Soon after, immigration from Japan was also limited.
Despite racial hostility, our family worked hard to plant roots. My ancestors were farmworkers. By the 1940s, my family saved enough to lease a piece of land. At that time, many Japanese American families made their living working with the land: by 1909, half of all Japanese Americans had a direct relationship to employment in agriculture. Let’s pause for a second: if you think of ten of your family members, imagine if five of them worked full time in agriculture. That’s a huge portion of the community!
Then, the Masumotos, along with 120,000 Japanese American lives, were uprooted. The United States entered World War II in 1941. The war fomented the widespread anti-Asian racism that was already apparent in laws like the first immigration policies. During wartime, Executive Order 9066 was issued by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, which led to the forced removal, community and family separation, and mass incarceration of Japanese Americans from the West Coast. Can you imagine having to suddenly leave your home, without knowing where you were going or for how long? Our family was incarcerated in Gila River, Arizona, on sovereign Gila River Indian Community land. The United States government did not ask permission from the tribe to use their lands; the government built prisons on already colonized land.
After the war, our family moved back to California and began to farm again. In 1948, my jiichan and baachan, Takashi “Joe” Masumoto and Carole Yukino (Sugimoto) Masumoto, started the Masumoto Family Farm in their early twenties.
I get to touch the same soil as my grandparents. Now, I, too, have a child with my wife, and my child will get to grow up seeing the seasons change—just like Midori did. This gives me great joy and honor. Every summer, just like Midori, we bring peaches to the cemetery to say thank you to our ancestors.
Living in close relationship with the land through farming is such an incredible gift. Our family and our amazing farm team work together, eat together, struggle together, and hope for the future together.
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Each peach represents stories of all the people who worked to grow it, of the land itself, of the community of living beings (beetles, field mice, birds, bees, fungus, bacteria, and more), and elements (air, soil, water, and sun) that all play a part in the growth of a peach. The story is also one of survival and the wisdom of ancestors. My heart’s hope is that all generations have deep relationships and reverence for plants, nourishment, and the people and ancestors who work and have worked the land.
And I hope you, dear reader, get a juicy, golden peach the next summer!
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