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We had no water for 11 days. Heat? Check! Power? Good! Water? No, sorry. We spent a lot of time filling up jugs and dragging them home, visiting relatives just to use their showers and washing machines, and melting snow. Yes, I even resorted to melting snow for flushing toilets.
Since we are doing a lot of babysitting at the same time, I am not reading much - except for awesome picture books like
Aki and the Fox by Akiko Hayashi. Kon the Fox gets into a lot of trouble on the train ride to visit Grandma . I have always wanted a sequel to this book. I found the second illustration on
klappersacks.tumblr.comAND
10 Minutes to Bedtime by Peggy Rathman. The little hamster kicking his soccer ball makes my favorite listener giggle every time.
Aki and the Fox by Akiko Hayashi is a delightful tale of travel and adventure set in Japan. Little Aki is about to visit her grandmother in the countryside. She will travel with Kon, her favorite stuffed fox. Kon has been with Aki ever since she was born and knows her well. Typical of much travel in Japan, the two board a train to get to their destination. When it is lunch time, Kon goes out to buy box-lunch bentos for the two of them and doesn’t come back. Poor Aki, what will she do? This is but one of a series of adventures the two have together before they arrive at Aki’s grandmother’s house in the evening.
One of the pleasures of reading this book to my daughter was re-living the experience of train travel in Japan. Hayashi’s colorful illustrations evoke well the experience of riding a train in the country, from the wobbling between the seats in the aisle while the train is moving, to watching the scenery go by, to buying and eating the bentos. My daughter was struck also by how little Aki resembled her second cousin; it is always such a delight to see children identify something from their own life with a situation and characters in a book.
Akiko Hayashi is a well known children’s book writer and illustrator in Japan. Aki and the Fox is the English translation of her Japanese book entitled Kon to Aki. She has a deft and delightful touch; her illustrations do much to enhance the story as well as give scope to her wide-ranging talent as an artist. The book has also been variously translated as Amy and Ken Visit Grandma and may also be searched under that title.
