Taro Yashima

was a Japanese-American artist and children's book author. He immigrated to the United States in 1939 and assisted the U.S. war effort.

After studying for three years at Tokyo Fine Arts School (now the Faculty of Fine Arts, Tokyo University of the Arts), Iwamatsu was expelled for insubordination and for missing a military drill. He then joined a group of progressive artists, sympathetic to the struggles of ordinary workers and opposed to the rise of Japanese militarism. The antimilitarist movement in Japan was highly active at the time within many Japanese professional and crafts groups. Artists' posters protesting the Japanese aggression in China were widespread.

Yashima began writing and illustrating children's books early in the 1950s, under the same pseudonym he had used in the OSS. His children's book Crow Boy won the Children's Book Award in 1955. The picture books Crow Boy (1955), Umbrella (1958), and Seashore Story (1967) were all runners-up for the Caldecott Medal, and they were later designated as Caldecott Honor Books. The annual award recognizes illustrators of the "most distinguished American picture book for children".

Yashima returned to his home village of Nejime, visiting childhood classmates and familiar scenes that he depicted in several of his children's picture books. He and filmmaker Glenn Johnson produced a 26-minute documentary in 1971, hosted and narrated by Yashima, entitled Taro Yashima's Golden Village.

Published works The New Sun (1943) Horizon is Calling (1947) The Village Tree (1953) Plenty to Watch (1954) by Mitsu and Taro Yashima Crow Boy (1955) Umbrella (1958) Momo's Kitten (1961) by Mitsu and Taro Yashima, illustrated by Taro Yashima Youngest One (1962) Seashore Story (1967)

Personal life The Yashimas moved from New York to Los Angeles in 1954, where they opened an art institute.

Yashima died in Glendale Memorial Hospital in 1994.