Shogo Oketani, translated by Avery Fischer Udagawa,
J-Boys: Kazuo’s World, Tokyo, 1965
Stone Bridge Press, 2011.

Ages 9-12

J-Boys describes the life a Japanese boy, Kazuo Nakamoto, living in Tokyo in the mid-1960s.  The book is laid out in chronological segments over a year starting in October.  Kazuo is nine years old and lives with his brother Yasuo and his parents in West Ito, a district in Shinagawa Ward in Tokyo.  Set in an interesting period in Japan’s more recent past, this account of a boy’s life in mid-’60s Japan touches on a wide range of social topics relevant to the time.  For example, the book discusses the issue of migrant labor used to develop the rapidly growing city of Tokyo, the racism against resident Koreans, and pervasive American cultural influences present on TV and in music.

There is nostalgia for this lost world prevalent in Japan at the moment – a period roughly corresponding to the latter part of the Showa era; and J-Boys is really a book that celebrates that Japan from a child’s perspective.  But at the same time as the book is nostalgic, it also explains the culture of the day to an English-reading audience. Alongside the main text are side-boxes explaining cultural items such as the names of foods, or the terms of reference for certain holidays or traditional art forms, which help contextualize Kazuo’s world for the reader.  I found these more or less helpful; with a book like this, it’s always difficult to ascertain what or what not to include as extra information for the reader.  However, using the side-boxes I think was a good device.

J-Boys is a great read that brings a certain slice of Japanese life to life, without making the culture seem like an artifact.  Yes, this is an account of a Japan of the past, but of a recent past that contains many elements of interest to readers, from the once ubiquitous urban phenomenon of the bath house to the gathering spot of Kazuo’s friends in the empty lot.  I appreciated the fact that this book is a translation of a Japanese author, Shogo Oketani, who lived through the period described. Stone Bridge Press and translator Avery Udagawa should be credited for taking on a book like this to give young readers an insightful look into Japanese society from the perspective of a young boy growing up in the ’60s. Alongside the book, one can consult the very helpful J-Boys website for information on the author and on Japan, as well as resources for teachers.

Sally Ito
October 2011

Written and illustrated by Eleanor B. Coerr, Japanese translation by Yumi Matsunari,
Circus Day in Japan
Tuttle Publishing, 2010.

Ages 6-8

When Joji-chan and his sister Koko-chan wake, they cannot contain their excitement. They are going to the circus! They race to light the charcoal fire, dash down to the rice fields to deliver their father’s lunch, and run to catch the train that will bring them to the big city housing the big circus tent. As the brother and sister delight in unfamiliar city sights, including a man dressed like a bull to advertise a local store, and a policeman on a box, directing traffic like a graceful ballerina, readers will delight in equally unfamiliar sights of Japanese culture and childhood. The siblings’ triumphant day peaks when the elephant of Joji-chan’s dreams finally arrives and they are chosen to ride it around the ring above the smiling faces of onlookers.

Originally published in 1953, this new bilingual edition of Circus Day in Japan captures the timelessness of childhood adventures, while introducing vivid details about life in Japan in the 1950s.  Illustration and text work hand in hand to integrate the familiar and the foreign, making Circus Day in Japan a perfect read-aloud for a story time librarian or a social studies teacher. For example, after Joji-chan hurries into the kitchen, where we read that his mother “Mrs. Shima was preparing lunch,” the accompanying illustration reveals what that might be, showing her with an oversize whole fish on the cutting board and a cleaver in hand. Such attention to detail makes the warmly illustrated text a continual nostalgic remembrance of childhood and exploration of Japanese life.

Universally beloved for Sadako and the Thousand Paper Cranes, author and illustrator Eleanor B. Coerr found inspiration for Circus Day in Japan after visiting a local circus during a one-year stay in Japan as a newspaper reporter.  While it lacks the same captivating magic of Sadako, its lengthier text, plus the addition of the Japanese translation by Yumi Matsunari, make this a valuable resource for bilingual classrooms, and in both English and Japanese speaking homes, communities and countries. In addition to subtle cultural lessons, Coerr integrates a more instructive approach in the warm-hued illustrations, sprinkling language lessons composed of images, English and Japanese words, and phonetic pronunciation throughout the text.

Sara Hudson
July 2011

Naoko Awa, translated by Toshiya Kamei,
The Fox’s Window and Other Stories
University of New Orleans Publishing, 2009.

Ages 9+

The Fox’s Window by Naoko Awa is a collection of ‘modern fairytales.’ Naoko Awa (1943-1993) was born in Tokyo and was an avid reader of European fairytales as a child. She studied at Japan’s Women’s University, where she was influenced by a teacher and translator of Nordic children’s literature, Shizuka Yamamuro. The Fox’s Window is a representative collection of Awa’s work, the edited and translated cumulation of which reflects the translator Toshiya Kamei’s taste.

From the first story, “The Sky-Colored Chair”, I was immediately enchanted by Awa’s imagination. A chair maker and his wife in northern Japan are expecting a child. The chair-maker decides to make a rocking chair and paint it red for the child. Unfortunately, the child is born blind and the chair maker, dismayed, gives up on painting the chair as the child will never experience the world of color. However, one day a mysterious boy shows up and offers the chair maker an opportunity to paint the chair the color of the sky. Soon the daughter, by sitting in the newly painted blue chair, experiences for the first time, the color of the sky. This essentially synaesthetic quality of the narrative wherein a blind child experiences color through sitting on a painted rocking chair won me quickly over to Awa’s highly imaginative and poetic story-telling.

Other such stories in the collection are equally as compelling and enchanting. The title tale, “The Fox’s Window”, left a strong impression on my daughter. In the story, through the Fox’s window – the shape made by putting one’s index fingers and thumbs together to form a diamond – one can see through to an irrecoverable and magical past.

As these stories are ‘modern fairytales,’ they do not necessarily all have happy endings. Some end rather sadly, others abruptly, and still others end atmospherically. In this way, Awa’s tales are rather unforgettable – they leave a deep impression like the way certain paintings do, haunting the reader long after one has finished reading them. This collection takes a reader through a literary, magical journey full of symbols and imagery that tap the deeper parts of the psyche. I was thoroughly captivated by The Fox’s Window and recommend it highly for readers interested in Japanese tales of a slightly untraditional bent, yet still bearing the magical qualities of the country’s best known folk tales.

Sally Ito
July 2011

Fresh on the heels of her newly released YA novel-in-verse Orchards, Holly Thompson has embarked on another exciting adventure. She has taken on the job of editor of Tomo, a benefit anthology to support teens affected by the Great East Japan Earthquake of March 11, 2011.

Tomo 友, which means friend in Japanese, will be comprised of young adult fiction set in or related to Japan and will be published in print and digital formats by Stone Bridge Press in Spring 2012. The publication of Tomo will coincide with the one-year anniversary of the earthquake and tsunami that devastated vast areas of northeastern Japan and resulted in loss of life and livelihood for thousands of people.

Here’s what Holly has to say about the new project:

Why Tomo? As I explain on the Tomo blog, so many teens in Tohoku have lost parents, siblings, relatives, friends, homes, schools, and huge swaths of their cities, towns and villages. Their teen worlds have been upended. Many will suffer from post traumatic stress syndrome. Many will need financial support to complete their education.

Proceeds from the sales of the Tomo anthology will go to organizations that assist teens in the quake and tsunami hit areas. Tomo will link writers of young adult fiction with readers worldwide and the teens in Tohoku in need of their support.

Submissions will be accepted until August 15, 2011 and the guidelines can be found here.

Stone Bridge Press, with its focus on books related to Japan and Asia, is a perfect fit for this project. It is a pleasure to be working with the Stone Bridge team again. [N.B. Holly's book Ash - A Novel was published by Stone Bridge Press in 2001.]

The Tomo blog will feature news about the anthology, interviews with contributors, and information about the teens, locations and organizations that Tomo will support.

I am so excited about this new venture, to be in the editing role for a collection of Japan-related young adult fiction, and to be setting in motion a project that will benefit teens in the quake- and tsunami-affected areas who are coping with layer upon layer of loss. May their days ahead be full of promise… and friends from near and far.

We wish you much success with this new project, Holly, and congratulate you for taking on such an important initiative!

A beautiful read at any time of day, but particularly ideal as a gentle bedtime read and exploration, The Park Bench by wife-and-husband team Fumiko Takeshita and illustrator Mamoru Suzuki (Kane/Miller, 1988) is a gem. Taking the simple focus of a park bench sitting silently under a tree, the finely honed narrative takes readers through the day from dark, early morning to dark, starry night. I have to say it sits silently because there is a magical expectation throughout that if the bench wanted to, it could actually speak. And the stories it could tell, of old people through to tiny babies, not to mention birds and animals! We are given a glimpse of some of them through the gorgeous illustrations, which expand on the simple words. For example,

Friends meet at the park.
The two mothers begin to chat.
They talk on and on.
Chitter-chatter, chitter-chatter, until its time to eat.

All the while the white bench listens quietly.

…While the mothers are busy chatting (and there’s a situation many young readers will empathise with!), their two toddler children are keeping themselves occupied, playing on the bench; the jolly park worker is mowing the grass backwards and forwards behind them; and a kitten arrives unnoticed and settles down under the bench. All these narrative threads can be followed in the cartoon sequence on the facing page, though there is no mention of them in the text. Two double-page illustrations of the park offer hundreds of details, as well as scope for comparison, both with each other and with the characters who surround the park bench more directly. The most important of these is the afore-mentioned park worker, who cares for the bench and talks to it – through him, young readers’ affinity with the actual bench is caught and held, as they explore, and perhaps speculate on, the myriad of different lives passing through the park.

The Park Bench is published as a bilingual book, in its original Japanese and English. I can’t (more…)

Meet Your Friends from Japan!

August 20 – September 27, 2009

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art located in Amherst, Massachusetts, has a collection of Japanese picture books donated by Japanese publishers, picture book art museums, illustrators, and friends of the museum.

In this exhibition, Meet Your Friends from Japan!, you are invited into the world of modern Japanese picture books that share similar graphic qualities or imaginative themes as those in Eric Carle’s works. Consequently, you may see Japanese culture in a new light as something that is very different and yet familiar to you. For more information click here.

The Asia/Pacific Cultural Centre for UNESCO (ACCU) is a non-profit organization which promotes mutual understanding and cultural cooperation among people in Asia and the Pacific, particularly in the fields of culture, book development, and literacy promotion. Since its beginning, ACCU’s literacy programs have focused on disadvantaged groups, such as those with limited education opportunities in rural areas, in particular girls and women. ACCU provides monetary and technical support to create regional versions of posters, booklets, games and puppets thereby making its literacy programs relevant to local life, culture, and languages.

For its Book Development projects, ACCU produces, translates, and distributes children’s books throughout Asia and trains local experts in an effort to contribute to the strengthening of local children’s book production. ACCU sponsors the Noma Concours for Picture Book Illustrations, which showcases the talents of up-and-coming illustrators, graphic designers and artists in Asia, the Pacific, Africa, Arab States, Latin America and the Caribbean. Click here to read PaperTigers’ recent interview with illustrator Wen Hsu, winner of the 2008 Noma Concours Grand Prize; and here to view our gallery featuring some of her award-winning illustrations.

This past March, ACCU held a symposium entitled “Artists of Children’s Books in Asia, Africa and Latin America”. Children’s book authors, illustrators (including Wen Hsu) and publishers from Costa Rica, Japan, the Philippines and Sudan were invited to Japan to share their thoughts on current issues in children’s book development in their respective countries, and to discuss the role of picture books in culturally diverse societies. A booklet containing the panelists’ papers is now available for download. To download selected papers, use the links below:

* Current Situation of Illustrators and Children in Costa Rica – Wen Hsu (Costa Rica)
* The Complicated Pleasure of Children’s Books – Karina Bolasco (Philippines)
* The Current Situation for Illustrators and Children’s Books in Sudan – Alaeldin Elgizouli Naeim (Sudan)
* Children, Festivals and Traditional Culture – Tajima Yukihiko (Japan)
* Picture Books Are More than Just Educational Tools – Tanaka Naoto (Japan)

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."