DIVING INTO WHALE BOYS, A LYRICAL NOVEL BY J.C. KATO

A few months ago, I began reading WHALE BOYS, THE TRUE ADVENTURES OF MELVILLE AND MANJIRO by J.C. Kato, newly released by Reycraft Books, 2026. The more I read, the more I fell in love with this lyrical novel! So, I wanted to share it with the Rhyme Doctors' House Calls readers as an example of a longer lyrical text for exploration and study. I was struck by the beauty of J.C.'s poetic verse, written in chapters structured by alternating viewpoints of the two protagonists. The experts agreed--as this book just earned a Junior Library Guild Gold Standard Selection Honor! Often, the Rhyme Doctors share blog posts focusing on picture books. WHALE BOYS offered an opportunity to mix it up and take a closer look at a novel written like a beautiful flowing poem. . . .

​I first met J.C. at an SCBWI-Florida conference years ago when I was new to the Sunshine State.  J.C. welcomed me and helped connect me with fellow creatives that weekend, and I was and am grateful for her kindness. I'm delighted to interview her about this new release!

Eileen: Welcome to our blog, J.C. How did you come to decide on this lyrical format for the novel?
J.C.: Thank you so much for reading Whale Boys, and I’m thrilled you’re enjoying it. Actually, the format chose me. It just wouldn’t let me manage the lines any other way. It happened in the first chapter I wrote from the Japanese perspective on a previous project (The Hour of the Horse: When General Grant Met the Emperor of Japan, Reycraft in October 2026). So for Whale Boys, I again had two huge historical characters with one big thing in common, but to get to the heart of the story, and stay focused on it, I had to really simplify enormous amounts of facts and information on them. The verse helped me accomplish that.

Eileen: How many drafts did it take to craft your verse novel?
J.C.: I have seven or eight years of drafts on my computer. I’d still be editing if I hadn’t just told myself, “enough, already!” After an SCBWI conference in Florida about six years ago, there was a stir of interest from a publisher on my Ulysses-Emperor story, which encouraged me to keep fiddling with it. My agent at the time, Rubin Pheffer, loved it, as well as Whale Boys, but publishers at that time didn’t want to run with the cross-cultural idea. Sometimes, it takes a while for the right publisher to appear. Reycraft wasn’t around back when Rubin was pitching both stories, but later on an editor immediately loved both manuscripts, and in one short face-time call, I’d sold both of them. And here we are.

Eileen:  Amazing! That is so important for creatives to understand that sometimes it's all about timing for pitching your project -- and to keep the faith! Can you tell us more about your thinking behind this layout?
J.C.: I believe it was a critique group pal way back, who blew me away with her courageous YA manuscript about a teen struggling with self-harm. At the time, I wasn’t really familiar with the verse format, and wouldn’t have considered it for my stories. Later, when researching for my W.W.II Girl Scout story, Finding Moon Rabbit which I co-authored with my daughter, I fell in love with Dust of Eden by Mariko Nagai. It also dealt with a tough subject through verse. So, when I innocently thought it would be cool to do a novel for kids about two countries that I love, I had no idea how hard it was going to be. Writing in verse, makes tough subjects approachable. And with Whale Boys it was especially fun! 

By this time, the layout was deliberate, and I wanted it to be fun reading for my target age group, 9-13. I wanted readers to enjoy a little up and down, like waves, using their eyes and imagination. It wasn’t just to slow them down, but to have a kid look at the whole page and ask, “what the heck is that?” and maybe read the page instead of skipping it.
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White space on the page, I believe, offers space in the brain—like what poetry and Picture Books do. White space leaves room for emotions to evolve and for the reader to draw their own conclusions. More importantly, I wanted kids to know that Melville and Manjiro were once kids with things happening to them that they had no control over—and how they persisted in trying to get back home to their families while serving in one of the most dangerous professions of the 19th Century, whaling.
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(Eileen: Below, I've included a few excerpts from the book to show the lyrical layout of J.C.'s text.)

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​Eileen:  We know that each book we create takes us on a unique journey. Where did your research take you?

J.C.: I’d like, for as long as I can, to travel to the places my characters have been and imagine that their feet may have walked past the same building, tree, stream, or river I was exploring. You don’t have to do that to write a good story, it’s just I learn best through sensory connections.

My feet have tromped all over New Bedford and Fairhaven, Massachusetts, where Herman Melville and John Manjiro lived or stayed, and had breathed in its briny air. (Sat in the pew Herman sat in at the Seamen’s Chapel, and stood in Manjiro’s bedroom in Captain Whitfield’s house). There’s a great whaling museum in New Bedford, complete with a whaling ship to bump your head on when climbing down into the whalemen’s sleeping quarters. Across the bridge to Fairhaven where Manjiro lived and went to school is the Whitfield-Manjiro Friendship Museum. Fairhaven is a sister city with Tosashimizu in Japan. My biggest high hopes were realized last year when I flew to Japan and stayed in the city of Tosashimizu where Manjiro lived before the Black Current swept him away.

My Ulysses story was more reading, reading, reading. But I’m from the hills of Ohio and easily imagined him as a young boy driving his horses through unfamiliar terrain. Thankfully, there were lots of materials available to study on Meiji—and I’d only dreamed of going to Tokyo. But after Tosashimizu, I took a train to Tokyo to visit Ueno Park and sit on the steps of Grant’s Memorial there.
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For my first novel, Finding Moon Rabbit, my husband and I visited all ten major internment camps where Japanese Americans were incarcerated during WWII. That’s ten locations placed in deserts, swamps, and in-the-middle-of-nowhere spots in California, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, Arkansas, and three visits to Heart Mount Wyoming where the story takes place. I learned to lasso there!

​Eileen:  Can you share any information about upcoming events?
J.C.: I’m honored to have been invited by Reycraft to participate in the ALA in Chicago this June. I’ll have two book signings for Whale Boys on Saturday and Sunday. Later this month I’m participating with other authors in Reycraft’s rollout of their fall books with The Hour of the Horse. My website jckato.com, will have pictures and updates. Go to “Send JC a Message” and watch/listen to the video on Whale Boys. It’s sure to get you moving! I share my book news on Facebook, //jckato.com, Instagram/Threads, instagram.com/findingmoonrabbit, and LinkedIn https://www.linkedin.com/in/jc-kato-0b216452/recent-activity/all/.

Cross your fingers for me. I have one more verse novel sitting in my computer on two more famous characters from the U.S. and Japan!

​Eileen: Thank YOU, JC! And again--congratulations on the Junior Library Guild Gold honor! I hope many of our House Calls readers will ask their local library to order a copy of WHALE BOYS or pick up a copy themselves to read and enjoy your beautiful lyrical adventure novel!  Happy summer reading!