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Japanese Picture Books as a Window to Japan ~ by Holly Thompson

Part 1 of 3

Some years ago, as we prepared for a second time to settle in Japan, with children ages two and seven, we were excited about the immediate access we would have to Japanese children’s literature. Japan has long had a robust children’s book market, and we were eager to be immersed in it. So after we moved into our rented home and formed our new school, work and household routines, just as we had in the U.S., we made weekly trips to our local library and brought home stacks of picture books, nature field guides, activity and art books, and, of course, manga—fiction, historical, and biography. With bookstores located at most Japanese train stations and plentiful throughout our town, we also spent hours browsing shop aisles.

Written Japanese includes three writing systems—kanji characters plus two phonetic syllabaries, and young children first learn to read the phonetic hiragana syllabary. Once children can read the hiragana symbols, reading words written in hiragana is immediate. Japanese children aged three and four are often seen reading books that are written entirely in hiragana, and our daughter could read this way in Japanese well before she could read in English.

Japanese picture books took our family deeper inside Japan. Not only were we exposed to great and quirky Japanese stories, but children’s books also provided a window into attitudes and human relations in our adopted culture. We came to better appreciate the rhythms of the language, learned dialogue for every situation, and encountered an infinite number of Japanese onomatopoeias. Japanese is such a complex language to read and write well, and children’s science and nonfiction books offered easy-to-comprehend information about the world around us—the physical world and the society to which we were adapting.

Many of our favorite Japanese children’s books from our years with younger children were published by Fukuinkan Shoten Publishers —their regular picture books, as well as their monthly series: Kodomo no tomo (Children’s Companion, in three age levels—0-2, 2-4, 5-6), Kagaku no tomo (Children’s Science Companion, in two age levels—3-5 and 5-6), Takusan no fushigi (World of Wonders, ages 8 and up) and the discontinued Ookina poketto (Big Pocket).

Fukuinkan Shoten’s monthly books (image on left) include original richly illustrated picture book stories, folktales, and outstanding and varied nonfiction. Published in sturdy paperbacks and often organized in their own sections in school and public libraries, these children’s books have endured on our shelves. I’ve often wondered if English-language publishers might benefit by considering the monthly book model that Fukuinkan Shoten has followed with great success here in Japan. Many of the most successful and popular monthly books, published initially as paperbacks with smaller print runs, are later published in hardcover, such as Taro Gomi’s Minna Unchi, famous in English as Everyone Poops.

Even without small children now, I still like to purchase Fukuinkan Shot

The Japan Times recently published an article entitled Fate’s path led Canadian to Kamakura: Heather Willson makes her mark, keeps focused on road ahead and her Cambodia school. The school referred to in the article, Butterfly School, is a free English school in the village of Popeae, near Udong, Cambodia, established by Heather Willson with Head Teacher Sovann Phon in September 2005.

Last year we were pleased to have the Butterfly School involved with our Spirit of PaperTigers Outreach Project. Holly Thompson, author and SCBWI Tokyo regional advisor, hand delivered a 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set to the school.  The photo accompanying the Japan Times article (and reprinted here) shows Heather reading one of the 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers books, My Little Round House, to the Butterfly School students.

To read more about the Butterfly School’s involvement with our project and to read their feedback on the 2010 Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set, please click here

Head on over to the PaperTigers webite to view our new Gallery feature of Mongolian artist Bolormaa Baasansuren. Bolormaa won the Grand Prize in the 14th Noma Councours with illustrations for her beautiful picture book My Little Round House, which we selected as pasrt of our Spirit of PaperTigers Book Set 2010. We are delighted to welcome her back now as a post-script to our Mongolia theme from earlier this year. Actually, Bolormaa is currently studying in Japan, so it was good to hear that she and her husband, fellow-artist Ganbaatar Ichinnorov were safe and well following the trauma in Japan over recent weeks. All the work shown in this Gallery has been published in Japan and is not (yet?) available in Englis. Here’s a sneak preview to whet your appetite – now head on over to view the whole Gallery for yourself…

Today we welcome James Webb to the PaperTigers blog. James works for ShelterBox, a charity based in the UK that delivers survival boxes, each containing a tent and other life-saving equipment, in the immediate aftermath of disasters around the world. The signature green box has become an iconic presence in such situations, with hundreds of thousands of people receiving crucial assistance in many different countries.

This year is ShelterBox’s 10th anniversary: to celebrate they have set up a 10-month Challenge with UK scouts. Little Brother is taking part in this with Cubs and I have got to know much more about the charity, as a Cub Leader. We are hoping to raise enough money to pay for a whole box so that we will be able to track “our” box to its destination…

When James, one of the Scout Challenge coordinators, emailed to say that he was about to leave for Haiti, I asked if he would send us a few words on his return: and I’m so glad he did as I didn’t know about their Classrooms in a Box before. Thank you, James; over to you:

When I was deployed to Haiti in mid April as a ShelterBox Response Team member, I was shocked by the level of destruction still evident in the country over three months after the earthquake devastated the country. Rubble is still everywhere and there are still thousands of people desperately in need of shelter.

While ShelterBox specialise in emergency shelter, we also send Classrooms in a Box which help children continue their education and provide some sort of normality for people who otherwise have lost everything.

In my 12 days in country I visited two schools which were each severely damaged by the earthquake, leaving them dangerous to use. One of these schools was operating from a large tent instead which had very little access to basic materials such as pencils and notepads. We immediately provided the school with another large tent and are planning on giving them a number of children’s packs which will each contain a small blackboard, note pads, crayons, pens, rubbers and a number of other items.

So much has been affected in Haiti but the people’s attitude is still inspiringly positive. Having the opportunity to make a difference by providing shelter and basic materials was a huge privilege and the experience of a lifetime.

The photos show smiling children who have just received the children’s pack – and if you watch this video, you can see what an oasis these packs provide (not to mention the incredible journeys the boxes often go through to reach their destinations). “For children who have lost most, if not all, their possessions, these small gifts are treasured.”