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

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.