Customer Reviews

The Moon Princess (Kodansha Children's Classics, 2)

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(2)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

This is a traditional japanese story, that I chose because for a japanese language student is a very good way to practice comprehension skills. It is also a nice story cause it contains no fatal punishment for any deed like other similar stories do, it is about what lies mean and of filial love. Other stories, instead, like Sarukani, The monkey an the Crab, are full of cruelty, something that clearly reflects the mentality of an era, in which there is no space for forgivness and the only posible punishment is allways fatal, with a previous list of torturing actions. Anyway, any of this bilingual stories can be of great help to students of japanese, best if you are trying to acquire a broad vocabulary, it only requires the search of the respective kanji and you are done with it.

We've used our copy to teach our children as well as to use for storytime in their school room. The book is well made, easy to follow, and affordable (look for Amazon's 4-for-3 promotion to save some money).

Check out my other Amazon.com reviews of kids' books.

The purpose of having a dual language book is to help learn a language, but the English and Japanese are so different in translation, almost ridiculous, that it is useless for this purpose. Also the print could have been better, the print is too small and only takes up about 10% of the page. They could have made the print larger and easier to read and still have left plenty of space on the pages. Not very well thought out.

I purchased this book as I am a collector of all things related to the Swiss illustrator, Warja Honegger-Lavater. Late in her career she produced a fan-fold "Leporello" book entitled "Kaguyahime : une imagerie en transparence d'après le conte japonais" (1997), which is the same tale as "The Moon Princess." This Japanese-English bilingual edition of the fairy tale goes nicely with Honegger-Lavater's work. With both works, I'm able to see more depth and context in the tale.

Within the last two years, my daughter has started learning Japanese, and this book has been a useful addition for items with which she can practice. For a simpler work, I might recommend I Am Maru, which has even simpler English-Japanese phrases for the same purpose.

In any case, this book is a small, beautiful work in its own right. I can easily give it 4 stars.

I got a couple of these books for my father's birthday because he's currently studying Japanese. Reading books in other languages is a fun way to learn, and non-expensive, too (a lot less expensive, and more effective, than a few language software programs out there that I could name).

The books got here quickly, and weren't damaged in any way.

Thank you very much for having these books available!

My wife bought this and one other Japanese children's book for our kids for Christmas, and none of my three kids enjoy this book. I will give you that the art is very well drawn, but this is simply not an enjoyable story for a young child. The story makes very little sense to a western 5 year old.

I'm not an expert on the Japanese language, by I do have several years of formal training in the language, and there were many parts of the translated story which were very suspect in the translator's word choice and pacing. Artistic license is one thing, this was kinda pushing it.

Overall, a book that will be useful to my wife who is currently studying Japanese, but not one my kids enjoy at all, so I feel we could have just as easily bought a random Japanese newspaper subscription for my wife and have been just as well off.

Traditional Japanese story with nice illustrations. Not the best book but it's a good choice.

I bought this for my 6 year old daughter, along with Tikki Tikki Tembo. She decided to be an Asian Princess for Halloween, and I saw this as an opportunity to purchase even MORE books! Although we both loved the illustrations, and enjoyed comparing the English and the Japanese writing, the end of the story was a touch too sad for her. Tikki Tikki Tembo was a little more to her liking...a happy ending for all.

I thought it was a lovely book, beautifully told and illustrated (the picture of the old bamboo cutter cupping the tiny, baby girl in his hands is particularly sweet), and there is also an interesting index in the back to peruse.

I understand that this story is an old, much-beloved, folk tale. As far as I was concerned, this telling of it did not disappoint.