Award-winning illustrator and author Mitsumasa Anno has long been engaging young readers through highly inventive books that call attention to the mathematical relationships that occur all around us. One such book is Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar*, a tale about “a porcelain jar with a sea inside,” which introduces children to the concept of counting by multiplication. Who ever heard of more beautiful imagery in connection with math? I certainly have not.

Anno is also highly regarded for his detailed illustrations depicting his interest in foreign cultures. In All in a Day, which Marjorie has highlighted last year on her “Night and Day” Books at Bedtime post, Anno and nine other artists celebrate “the commonality of humankind” through brief text and illustrations of a day in the lives of children in eight different countries: “We may live in different places, speak different languages, wear different clothes, and pursue different dreams, but we are all here on Earth–right now, each in our own country–and we all share the joys of laughter and learning and life.” What a great idea for young ones to contemplate and explore.

In an interview to the online magazine “Japanese Children’s Books,” Anno talks about his inspiration for All in a Day:

The inspiration for this book arose when I was overwhelmed by the finest sunset on earth at Uskudar, in Istanbul. It was such a fantastic and utterly gorgeous sunset to beat all sunsets! But when I realized that the sun which was just setting in front on my eyes was at the very same time, a rising sun in some other country, I was totally thunderstruck. This meant that this same sun was going down in a country at war and at that same time, it was rising in a country at peace. This was an unbelievably shocking realization for me.

Anno’s deeply felt realization is the kind we can all use more of, these days. Let’s all hope for its multiplication in our “mysterious world jar.”

*Anno’s Mysterious Multiplying Jar and some of Anno’s other books have been included in Marjorie’s piece about alphabet and counting books, “A Whole World of ABCs and 123s."

Posted by: Aline | This entry was posted on Wednesday, December 10th, 2008 at 1:10 pm and is filed under Reading the World. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Tags: All in a Day, Anno's Mysterious Multiplying Jar, cross-cultural understanding, Illustrators, Japanese children's books, Mitsumasa Anno, similarities and differences