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

Ages 9-12

Though little is known about Norman Hinsdale Pitman (1876-1925) today, his effort to bring Chinese folklore to Western readers continues to be influential.  Indeed Pitman, who taught at Chinese colleges and authored several novels and short story collections, brought these ancient tales to a new audience much as the Brothers Grimm preserved the fairytales of central Europe for generations to enjoy.  These tales, not unlike those gathered by the Grimms in Europe, are full of magic, mysticism, and a certain amount of gore.

Tuttle’s latest edition of The Chinese Wonder Book, originally published in 1919, includes the beautiful and highly detailed full-color illustrations by Li Chu Tang originally published in the book’s first edition and printed here on high-quality glossy paper.  There is also an engaging foreword by Sylvia Li-Chun Lin, associate professor in the Department of East Asian Languages and Cultures, University of Notre Dame.

The tales include some of the best known fairytales of China, among them  ‘The Golden Beetle or Why the Dog Hates the Cat’, ‘The Strange Tale of Doctor Dog’ and ‘The Talking Fish’. Many of the themes and even the plots and characters resemble those found in Western fairytales: but these are not your cleaned-up, Disneyfied stories.  Happy endings are in short supply, and the brutality is every bit as intense as that of the original tales of the Brothers Grimm or Hans Christian Andersen.  At the same time, there is lighter fare to be found in stories such as ‘Bamboo and the Turtle’ and ‘The Mad Goose and the Tiger Forest’, stories which will be enjoyed by even very young listeners.

In these rich and exciting tales, virtue, including hard work and filial piety, is rewarded, and wickedness is punished, though the version of justice reflected in the stories is clearly of a particular time and place and may not resonate with children of today.  For instance, it may seem of little consolation to be immortalized in a famous monument after an unjust death (‘The Great Bell’).  On the other hand, when a lazy thief and would-be liar turns his life around rather than be turned into a duck (‘The Man Who Would Not Scold’), children and their parents will delight in the tale’s humor and theme of redemption.

The Chinese Wonder Book has served as an introduction to the folk tales of classical China for generations and remains Pitman’s best-known work.  This lovely new edition will sit proudly alongside other folklore and fairytale collections and open up the world of ancient Chinese stories to today’s readers and generations yet to come.

Abigail Sawyer
June, 2011

Seven is set apart from her older sisters from the start: while they work in the fields, she does beautiful embroidery, which is then sold at the market, thereby providing the family with the sustenance the rocky ground cannot. The symbolism of this carries the narrative through to its conclusion (it’s a fairy tale so it’s irrelevant to question the point of the other sister’s activities, farming land on which nothing will grow). Three is jealous of Seven – and never more so than when, instead of suffering a terrible fate after agreeing to marry a firece dragon in return for her father’s life, Seven arrives on a visit to her family on a ‘chair of gold and coral’ and with all her maids behind her, descending from the sky in a ‘glittering procession’.

Three therefore tricks Seven and takes her place, preparing the Dragon Prince for a change in his wife’s appearance by saying she’s been ill – which makes for an interesting take on Beauty and the Beast: the Prince “didn’t care. In that short time, Seven had come to mean everything to him, not for her beauty but for her kindness.”

So do they live happily ever after? Well, I highly recommend you get hold of this great story and find out for yourself, and enjoy some cultural nuances along the way. For example, one bit that made me chuckle and served to show the Dragon Prince’s state of mind as he searches deperately for Seven: he buys at a market “without bargaining”!

Gathering Books also featured The Dragon Prince earlier this year, as part of a wonderful series of in-depth posts about Chinese fairy-tales – in case you missed them, here are the other links; they’re definitely worth a read: Lon Po Po: A Red-Riding Hood Story from China (which Little Brother read for our Reading the World Challenge in 2008) and Yeh-Shen: A Cinderella Story from China (which I have also featured as a Book at Bedtime in the past)…

The young cast did a wonderful job of telling the story of four Cinderellas from four different cultures and proved that Cinderella can indeed have brown eyes and black hair! It truly was a multicultural experience with aspects of traditional Chinese theatre, a Korean fan dance, Tae Kwon Do martial arts and the singing of a sacred First Nations song that has been passed down from generation to generation. Director Mandy Tulloch says she wanted to ensure that each version of Cinderella was shown in a manner that was true to its respective culture:

Advisors were consulted to make sure the play was as culturally responsible as possible. In the segment from China, we utilize the traditional method in Chinese theatre where the audience is asked for permission for the performance to take place. We also have the property men as well. For the First Nations piece, we were granted permission by the local elders for the performance to take place. They also blessed the show and worked with us on the music and mask making. In the Korean segment, which was written specifically for this show, you will see an authentic Korean Fan Dance performed by kids as well as award winning Tae Kwon Do artists.

Multicultural versions of Cinderella abound in children’s and young adult books too. To get a sense of what’s out there, check out our blog posts Globe-trotting Cinderella and Bound by Donna Jo Napoli and Books at Bedtime: Fairy Tales (2); and read this review of Abadeha: The Philippine Cinderella, which forms part of our current focus on the Philippines…