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Sunny Seki, author-illustrator,
Yuko-Chan and the Daruma Doll: The Adventures of a Blind Japanese Girl Who Saves Her Village
Tuttle, 2012.

Age: 5 and up

Sunny Seki’s latest children’s book is set 200 years ago in the village of Takasaki, 90 miles from Tokyo, just after a devastating volcanic eruption of nearby (and still active) Mt. Asama. Yuko-chan, Seki’s spunky little fictional heroine, is a blind orphan, cared for by the monks at Daruma Temple there.

Yuko-chan’s intelligence, compassion and complete lack of self-pity are evident early in the story. She knows all about how Daruma (Bodhidharma to westerners) brought the Buddha’s teaching to China. Daruma was famous for continuing to meditate even after his arms and legs became numb. He exhorted followers, “If you fall seven times, you must pick yourself up eight times! You need strong faith, and the belief that you can accomplish your goals!”

The indomitable Yuko-chan, inspired by Daruma’s words, helps deliver food to bereft villagers who have lost their homes and farms. One day, she notices that her tea gourd always returns to upright after being dropped, and she likens it to Daruma, never giving up. She gets the villagers to begin painting gourds with Daruma’s famously fierce face. The Daruma dolls quickly gain popularity. Her ingenious idea provides a new livelihood for the community.

Takasaki is in fact famous today for its Daruma dolls. Visitors purchase the dolls with the eyes blank. They paint in one eye when they make a wish or vow and add the other when their goal is achieved. Actually an old tradition with a murky history, the eye painting has been criticized in recent years by Japanese organizations for the blind. Perhaps their protest inspired Seki’s story; it’s poetically appropriate that his vision-impaired little girl would resolve a village crisis with goal-inspiring, blank-eyed Daruma dolls.

Award-winning author-illustrator Sunny Seki brings the feisty and adorable Yuko-chan vividly to life in word and image. He captures the simple beauties of nature and the rustic built environment of the time as well. A Japanese translation follows the English text on each page, with hiragana (phonetic) symbols printed in superscript so novice Japanese readers can more easily follow the story. The back matter gives additional information about Daruma and the Daruma doll tradition. Tuttle’s expert design and high production quality further enhance the experience of Yuko-chan and the Daruma Doll. Its impact will deepen with repeated reading.

Charlotte Richardson
April 2012

Setsu Broderick and Willamarie Moore, illustrated by Setsu Broderick,
Japanese Traditions: Rice Cakes, Cherry Blossoms and Matsuri
Tuttle Books.

Ages: 8-12

This delightful picture book of months shows Japan’s traditional customs and practices over the calendar year. Using a family of cats whimsically and colorfully drawn in a beautiful countryside setting, the authors explore the various customs and festivals engaged in by the residents through a typical Japanese year. The book is laid out in months, showing the festivals, games and foods associated with that season. This is the kind of book that one could read over the span of a year, enjoying what a typical country family in Japan would experience in their daily life. The seasons, after all, are somewhat universal and some of what appears in the book would be familiar to readers in many other parts of the world. I especially liked the spring time to early summer period –March to June – when all the fruit trees begin to blossom starting with the plum and ending with the hydrangea, and of course, including the ever symbolic cherry blossom which typically blooms in April.

The illustrations by Setsu Broderick are what make this book a real pleasure to read. As the preface indicates, this book is a look back by the illustrator Setsu, at her childhood memories of the Japanese countryside of 50 years ago. There’s a cozy familiarity to the images that are nonetheless finely detailed renderings of what a country house or yard might look like at any given season in the year. From the communal kotatsu – low table with a wraparound blanket around it with a heat lamp underneath — present in the winter households to the presence of the ubiquitous uchiwa fans in summer, each of the seasons contains nostalgic images from Japan’s more rural areas. For each of the months depicted, there is a question at the back about the activities the kittens are involved in or are doing. These questions are designed to make the reader look closer and enjoy the details – something that I know my daughter likes doing with picture books.

Japanese Traditions is exactly the kind of book worth curling up with in a warm place with your child. It’s a friendly, nostalgic look at the country, filled with the bustling details of the everyday life of Japanese families in the countryside as they experience it twelve months of the year.

Sally Ito
March 2012

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

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 read Japanese and read this review from School Library Journal with interest. It made me wish, as ever, that I could have a handle on the original - but I actually like the simplicity of the English (including the fact that the narrative is in the present tense, which persumably does reflect the Japanese) and had already noted the use of very English onomatopeia in Ruth A. Kanagy’s translation…

All in all, I would say that this charming book looks set to have enduring appeal on both sides of the Pacific… and every time it is opened, some new detail will pop out - oh, yes, there’s another one!

Meet Your Friends from Japan!
ともだちは日本にもいるよ！

August 20 - September 27, 2009

The Eric Carle Museum of Picture Book Art located in Amherst, MA, 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! ともだちは日本にもいるよ！, 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 the beginning, ACCU ’s literacy programs have focused on the disadvantaged groups: those with limited education opportunities in the rural areas and among 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 it’s 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 that 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’ feature on illustrator Wen Hsu, winner of the 2008 Noma Concours Grand Prize.

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 roles of picture books in culturally diverse societies. ACCU published a booklet for the symposium which contains the panelists’ papers and it is now available for download. Or click below to download each panelist’s paper:

* 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)