British Children's Literature in Japanese Culture

British Children's Literature in Japanese Culture PDF Author: Catherine Butler
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing
ISBN: 1350195499
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 233

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Book Description
Whether watching Studio Ghibli adaptations of British children's books, visiting Harry Potter sites in Britain or eating at Alice in Wonderland-themed restaurants in Tokyo, the Japanese have a close and multifaceted relationship with British children's literature. In this, the first comprehensive study to explore this engagement, Catherine Butler considers its many manifestations in print, on the screen, in tourist locations and throughout Japanese popular culture. Taking stock of the influence of literary works such as Gulliver's Travels, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland, The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Tom's Midnight Garden, and the Harry Potter series, this lively account draws on literary criticism, translation, film and tourist studies to explore how British children's books have been selected, translated, understood, adapted and reworked into Japanese commercial, touristic and imaginative culture. Using theoretically informed case studies this book will consider both individual texts and their wider cultural contexts, translations and adaptations (such as the numerous adaptations of British children's books by Studio Ghibli and others), the dissemination of distinctive tropes such as magical schools into Japanese children's literature and popular culture, and the ways in which British children's books and their settings have become part of way that Japanese people understand Britain itself.

How Do You Live?

How Do You Live? PDF Author: Genzaburo Yoshino
Publisher: Algonquin Young Readers
ISBN: 1643751611
Category : Juvenile Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 288

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Book Description
The first English translation of the classic Japanese novel that has sold over 2 million copies—a childhood favorite of anime master Hayao Miyazaki (Spirited Away, My Neighbor Totoro, Howl’s Moving Castle), with an introduction by Neil Gaiman. First published in 1937, Genzaburō Yoshino’s How Do You Live? has long been acknowledged in Japan as a crossover classic for young readers. Academy Award–winning animator Hayao Miyazaki has called it his favorite childhood book and announced plans to emerge from retirement to make it the basis of his final film. How Do You Live? is narrated in two voices. The first belongs to Copper, fifteen, who after the death of his father must confront inevitable and enormous change, including his own betrayal of his best friend. In between episodes of Copper’s emerging story, his uncle writes to him in a journal, sharing knowledge and offering advice on life’s big questions as Copper begins to encounter them. Over the course of the story, Copper, like his namesake Copernicus, looks to the stars, and uses his discoveries about the heavens, earth, and human nature to answer the question of how he will live. This first-ever English-language translation of a Japanese classic about finding one’s place in a world both infinitely large and unimaginably small is perfect for readers of philosophical fiction like The Alchemist and The Little Prince, as well as Miyazaki fans eager to understand one of his most important influences.

A Child's Garden of Verses

A Child's Garden of Verses PDF Author: Robert Louis Stevenson
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category : Children's literature
Languages : en
Pages : 108

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Book Description
A collection of poems evoking the world and feelings of childhood.

Adapting Canonical Texts in Children's Literature

Adapting Canonical Texts in Children's Literature PDF Author: Anja Müller
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441164278
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 257

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Book Description
Adaptations of canonical texts have played an important role throughout the history of children's literature and have been seen as an active and vital contributing force in establishing a common ground for intercultural communication across generations and borders. This collection analyses different examples of adapting canonical texts in or for children's literature encompassing adaptations of English classics for children and young adult readers and intercultural adaptations of children's classics across Europe. The international contributors assess both historical and transcultural adaptation in relation to historically and regionally contingent concepts of childhood. By assessing how texts move across age-specific or national borders, they examine the traces of a common literary and cultural heritage in European children's literature.

Recasting the Past

Recasting the Past PDF Author: Laura Moretti (Lecturer in Pre-modern Japanese Studies)
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789004337138
Category : Illustration of books
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Book Description
In Recasting the Past: An Early Modern Tales of Ise for Children Laura Moretti offers a critical edition, translation and study of a 1766 Japanese picture-book. The introduction includes an in-depth examination of chapbooks, kusazōshi, The Tales of Ise and children's literature.

Japan and American Children's Books

Japan and American Children's Books PDF Author: Sybille Jagusch
Publisher:
ISBN: 9781978822870
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 350

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Book Description
Japanese-American relations have been the object of considerable study from the 1850s, when Commodore Matthew Perry used gunboat diplomacy to break the seclusion of an island nation. Japan and American Children's Books: A Journey explores this relationship from a unique perspective, examining representations of Japan's history and culture in American children's literature from the early nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first. Sybille A. Jagusch traces depictions of Japan from their first appearances in early European children's books to their emergence in the pages of those published in the United States. A carefully curated collection of text excerpts and images reveals evolving American perceptions of Japan and Japanese people over the course of more than two centuries. Drawn from rare and often long-forgotten children's books in the collections of the Library of Congress, the early excerpts express assumptions and stereotypes held by western writers and illustrators whose work was meant to share insight into the cultures and practices of a people about whom they knew little. They include passages from the illustrated journal of a boy who accompanied Commodore Perry on his first voyage to Japan; selections from romanticized late nineteenth-century travelogues--some penned by writers who had never visited Japan; and excerpts from stories featured in St. Nicholas, the influential American children's magazine that was published from the early 1870s to the 1940s. Later samples reveal the waxing and waning relationship between the two countries amid the evolution of the children's publishing genre, which met the complexities and strains of a rapidly changing world with increasingly sophisticated and stylized accounts that laid bare the grim realities of war, racism, and annihilation: the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the nuclear holocaust of Hiroshima, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The book's final chapters highlight the unique contributions of Japanese American authors and illustrators in recounting their personal experiences and those of their families. A journey through the fits and starts of cultural awakening, this carefully curated sampler underscores the challenges of trying to understand and portray people from another culture. It also showcases the talent of more than a century of children's book writers and illustrators, many of whose work has languished without recognition until now.

Children's Literature in Context

Children's Literature in Context PDF Author: Fiona McCulloch
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1847064876
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
Featuring close readings of commonly studied texts, this book takes students of Children's Literature through the key works, their contexts and critical and popular afterlives.

The Secret of the Blue Glass

The Secret of the Blue Glass PDF Author: Tomiko Inui
Publisher: Pushkin Children's Books
ISBN: 1782690794
Category : Young Adult Fiction
Languages : en
Pages : 193

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Book Description
On the first floor of the big house of the Moriyama family, is a small library. There, on the shelves next to the old books, live the Little People, a tiny family who were once brought from England to Japan by a beloved nanny. Since then, each generation of Moriyama-family children has inherited the responsibility of filling the blue glass with milk to feed the Little People and it's now Yuri's turn. The little girl dutifully fulfils her task but the world around the Moriyama family is changing. Japan is caught in the whirl of what will soon become World War II, turning her beloved older brother into a fanatic nationalist and dividing the family for ever. Sheltered in the garden and the house, Yuri is able to keep the Little People safe, and they do their best to comfort Yuri in return, until one day owing to food restrictions milk is in shorter supply...

Ethics in British Children's Literature

Ethics in British Children's Literature PDF Author: Lisa Sainsbury
Publisher: A&C Black
ISBN: 1441190775
Category : Literary Criticism
Languages : en
Pages : 381

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Book Description
Featuring close readings of selected poetry, visual texts, short stories and novels published for children since 1945 from Naughty Amelia Jane to Watership Down, this is the first extensive study of the nature and form of ethical discourse in British children's literature. Ethics in British Children's Literature explores the extent to which contemporary writing for children might be considered philosophical, tackling ethical spheres relevant to and arising from books for young people, such as naughtiness, good and evil, family life, and environmental ethics. Rigorously engaging with influential moral philosophers, from Aristotle through Kant and Hegel, to Arno Leopold, Iris Murdoch, Mary Midgley, and Lars Svendsen, this book demonstrates the narrative strategies employed to engage young readers as moral agents.

Miyazawa Kenji and His Illustrators

Miyazawa Kenji and His Illustrators PDF Author: Helen Kilpatrick
Publisher: BRILL
ISBN: 9004249400
Category : Art
Languages : en
Pages : 231

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Book Description
In Miyazawa Kenji and His Illustrators, Helen Kilpatrick examines re-visionings of the literature of one of Japan’s most celebrated authors, Miyazawa Kenji (1896-1933). The deeply Buddhist Kenji's imaginative dōwa (children’s tales) are among the most frequently illustrated in Japan today. Numerous internationally renowned artists such as Munakata Shikō, Kim Tschang-Yeul and Lee Ufan have represented his stories in an array of intriguing visual styles, reinvigorating them as picture books for modern audiences. Focusing on some of Kenji’s most famous narratives, the author analyses the ways artists respond to the stories’ metaphysical philosophies, exploring the interaction of literature, art and culture. Miyazawa Kenji and His Illustrators is richly depicted with full colour images of the representations of Kenji’s work, making the book a valuable resource on how illustrations shape story, and how these picture books continue to convey the texts’ witty and ironic messages more deeply than the written word alone.