Today is Aug. 6, the anniversary date of the bombing of Hiroshima.  Shortly afterwards Japan surrendered.  In the wake of such catastrophic defeat, thousands of children were orphaned.  Kenji and the Cricket by Adele Wiseman, illustrated by Shizuye Takashima (Porcupine’s Quill, 1988)  is the story of such a war orphan.  Kenji is from Tokyo.  With no parents or place to live, he wanders the city alone, scrounging for food from fish markets and restaurants.  One summer evening, he discovers a cricket in the bushes in the park.  The soothing music of the insect comforts Kenji and he adopts him as a pet.  But where and how will he keep such a precious but fragile creature?  Kenji sets out with the cricket stuffed in his shirt, determined to find it a home.

Kenji and the Cricket is a little known classic of  Canadian children’s literature.  Written by the late Adele Wiseman in 1988, and illustrated by late Japanese Canadian artist, Shizuye Takashima (author of A Child in Prison Camp), the work is a collaboration by two well known Canadian women artists.   I don’t think I’d ever read anything about Japanese war orphans in English for children until I read this book.  Up until then my only knowledge of the plight of such children was through John Dower’s Pulitzer Prize winning historical analysis of Japan in the immediate post-war period Embracing Defeat published in 1999.  And also, there was a film by well known Japanese filmmaker, Hayao Miyazaki called Grave of the Fireflies, which was also released in Japan in 1988 alongside his children’s blockbuster, My Neighbor Totoro.

If you’re looking for a book that describes the plight of war orphans, you might just look up Kenji and the Cricket.  Do you know of any good books that cover this topic for children?  Do recommend them to me and others by leaving a comment!

It’s hard to believe that a month has gone by since my first update on our rising to the PaperTigers Reading Challenge but it has and we are just about managing to keep up! Our three books this month are all very different and once again Big Brother and Little Brother have prepared their own reviews. It is quite coincidental that both their ‘solo’ books are illustrated by Ed Young – and that they both feature piercing eyes on their front covers!

Meanwhile our joint choice has been The Select Nonsense of Sukumar Ray. We still have quite a long way to go and I suspect we’ll be dipping into it right to the end of the Challenge: you can’t rush Nonsense Poetry! Each poem has to be savored and the sounds enjoyed. Sukanta Chaudhuri’s translations from the original Bengali are truly amazing – lots of delightful rhymes and rhythms; and nonsense that is both nonsensical and convincingly English. Sukumar Ray’s own sketches and silhouettes sometimes give a visual lead into the poems and it hasn’t worried my two that some of the language is archaic: they expect to be baffled because it is, after all, nonsense! I think the word porcochard from “Hotch Potch” is set to become a new family word. But of course this is a translation – and here is another version, equally virtuoso, of the same poem, this time translated by Sukumar Ray’s son, Satyajit Ray. Here the extraordinary combination of a pochard/duck and a porcupine has become a “Porcuduck”…. Which of course leads into all sort of questions about translations… but that’s for a later date!

Big Brother’s book was Sadako in the picture book version by Eleanor Coerr, illustrated, as I said, by Ed Young. I said how much I was looking forward to seeing this book in a post for World Peace Day; here’s what Big Brother (aged 9 ½ exactly!) has to say: (more…)