Take Nankichi Niimi’s Tebukuro wo kai ni (available in English as Buying Mittens, translated by Judith Carol Huffman) a popular folktale about a mother-child pair of foxes going to town to buy some mittens on a cold, winter day. Like in many countries, animals feature strongly in Japanese stories and folktales. I just enjoy the sound of the old-fashioned sewing machine: “ kata kata.” Young children simply love seeing the dress adorned in its many patterns.

Kayako Nishimaki’s Watashi no wanpisu(“My Dress “) remains a perennial favorite in Japan for its rhythmical text and simple drawings. The dress takes on wonderous designs during the rabbit’s travels.

It starts with a piece of cloth fluttering down from the sky, and the rabbit works it through a sewing machine to make a dress.

One Japanese favorite is a story about a rabbit and its magical dress. Having missed out of an entire section of published children’s literature, today I find myself discovering a fascinating spectrum of picture books in Japan with my two children. I recall keeping a prized collection of The Adventures of Tintin and The Adventures of Asterix (eventually given away), but not many other kinds of stories told in pictures. I confess, I don’t remember reading many picture books in my childhood. May GLLI Blog Series: Japan in Translation, No.

Japanese picture translator