My Favorite Chaperone

Born in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1942, Jean Davies Okimoto is a psychotherapist and children’s author based in Seattle, Washington. Okimoto started her journey as a writer in 1953. She published her first children’s book, My Mother is Not Married to My Father in 1978, motivated by her children’s difficulty coping with her and her first husband’s divorce. Her second book, It's Just Too Much, is about second marriages and step-siblings, inspired by her second marriage to Joe Okimoto in 1973. This book won the Washington State Book Award, and she has won many awards since then for her books.

Okimoto never set out to write children’s or YA literature and also knew that she could not depend on being a writer because of the low and unsteady income. Because of that, she pursued another area of interest: psychotherapy. Her 35-year-long career as a psychotherapist gave her insight into the minds of young people and inspired and enriched her writing. Commenting on the two careers complementing each other, she wrote: “As a therapist, you unfortunately can't always count on a happy ending for all clients as much as you hope for one, but it was cathartic to know I could always make things come out all right for the characters in my books” (“About Jeanie Okimoto,” Jeanie Davies Okimoto). This catharsis can be observed in “My Favorite Chaperone” when Maya’s parents let her go to the dance and she has a great time.

Inspired by her blended family—Okimoto has children from her first and second marriages, the latter of whom are Asian American—Okimoto writes characters whose heritage makes them see the world differently or are perceived differently by their peers. In “My Favorite Chaperone,” Nurzhan deals with racist bullying, Maya must translate for her parents, and the Alazovas have a different parenting perspective than the Luis. Another story, “The Eclipse of Moonbeam Dawson,” deals with questions about identity in biracial teens. “Talent Night” which was published in 1995 and turned into a play called “Uncle Hideki,” depicts a Japanese-American mother and two grown biracial children who deal with identity conflicts.