On a hot November day in 1926, a 13-year-old boy dressed as the Pied Piper led more than 1,000 children not out of town, but to the Central Library of Los Angeles. He marched at the head of a parade held to celebrate the opening of the children’s reading room. The piper, who had earned his spot by winning a city-wide writing competition, was a burgeoning Japanese-American poet possessed of a great talent and a great name: Ambrose Amadeus Uchiyamada. From the sun-scorched streets of America’s newest metropolis, the children,…
