by Cary Osborne
Rows of eager children wearing white LA Reads T-shirts sat crisscross applesauce on the floor of Dunsmore Elementary School’s multi-purpose room in La Crescenta on Tuesday. Except for one pig-tailed little girl.
It was OK that she stood out from the crowd.
Her Dodger blue T-shirt had the name of the morning’s special guest spelled out on the back with a big number 18 below it.
A special experience for all involved, Dodger starting pitcher Yoshinobu Yamamoto read the children’s book “Hayao Miyazaki” — a biography of the inspirational Japanese animator — during a dual immersion Storytime and Q&A discussion with Dunsmore Elementary School students.
As soon as the double doors opened to the multi-purpose room and Yamamoto walked out, a high-pitched roar filled the space. Yamamoto first read to a group of 102 kindergarten to second-graders and then took questions from the kids. Then he answered questions from a group of 148 students in a second session. All questions were in Japanese.
One child asked what he misses about his home country.
The second-year Major Leaguer said his friends.
Does he get nervous before games?
Yamamoto admitted he does.
“In order to overcome the nervousness, I practice regularly to build up my confidence,” he said.
Next, a little girl stood up with confidence and shouted her question in her still growing voice and asked who his best friends are on the team.
Yamamoto said his Japanese Dodger teammates — Shohei Ohtani and Roki Sasaki.
Does he have a celebration dance?
Yamamoto laughed and said unfortunately he didn’t.
And any advice for kids with Major League dreams?
“Don’t forget the enjoyment and fun of baseball,” Yamamoto said.
Yamamoto also participated in the first dual immersion Storytime event in 2024. The event is a partnership between the Los Angeles Dodgers Foundation and the Dodger Government Affairs & Community Relations department.
LA Reads addresses the literacy crisis in Los Angeles with an objective of motivating youth to read and build a lifelong love of reading. The program includes Storytimes and book giveaways with Dodger players, coaches, broadcasters and alumni, as well as partnerships with libraries and literacy focused nonprofits. Since 2017, more than 30,000 books have been distributed to students, showcasing diverse authors and characters, and ensuring access to essential educational resources.
LA Reads also invests resources into renovating and refurbishing literacy corners at after-school centers and libraries providing new furniture, paint and age-appropriate books. The Dodgers Reading Champions challenge incentivizes youth participants grades K through 8 to read 30 minutes or more per day.
“We created a program called LA Reads that is to ignite the excitement of reading in all of you,” LADF CEO Nichol Whiteman told the children of Dunsmore Elementary.
Then she asked how many students are Dodger fans. All the hands went up.
Then she asked how many students love to read. All the hands went up again.
The Yamamoto dual-immersion event was meaningful to the Dodger pitcher. His smile said it. But so did his words.
“I’m very thankful to have been given this opportunity,” Yamamoto said. “I think it was great to see (a) Japanese (player) come here to inspire them to become successful.”
Yoshinobu Yamamoto aces reading assignment was originally published in Dodger Insider on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.