Customer Reviews

Little One-Inch & Other Japanese Children's Favorite Stories

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Introduce your children to the wonderful tales Japanese children know and love! A bit abridged, if you know the tales already, but these are a fine collection.

Little One-Inch is Japan's Tom Thumb, and he is shown wending his way down a stream in a boat made of a rice bowl, using a chopstick for propulsion.

There are ten stories in all, sweetly illustrated in Japanese style. Kids 3 to 10 will enjoy these; my favorite is The Rabbit Who Crossed the Sea ...on the backs of sharks he somewhat maliciously tricks into helping him. The listener learns Rabbit's hard-won lesson about fooling people, and they are given a delightfully amazing picture of Rabbit using the sharks as an inter-island bridge.

One warning: there is a color picture of Little One-Inch poking a needle into the eye of a demon, but I've seen more frightening pictures in Disney publications. In general, the book has nothing scarier than what western fairy tales offer.

My kids are 4 and 6 and enjoy hearing these stories again and again. The pictures are really lovely too.

Issunboushi (Little One Inch) is a staple of Japanese children's stories, and there is even a children's song based on it. While the violence in the stories is a bit much for 21st century Western culture, this English translation has toned down the more graphic details. For example, this version says Issunboushi stabs the evil ogre's nose and eye. The original had the ogre swallowing Issunboushi and vomiting him out after the latter had stabbed his stomach lining with his needle-sword. A Japanese version of "The Crab and the Monkey" (Saru-Kani Gassen) said the monkey killed the crab by pelting it with hard persimmons and the crab's children got revenge by beating him to a pulp. This English version has the injured crab exacting a less extreme form of justice by having allies injure the monkey until he admits and apologizes for his transgressions.

While this may appear much now, children actually find comfort in seeing the bad guy getting his just deserts. The stories are clear and straightforward-- those who do evil lose and those who do good win. The illustrations are simple and magical ("suitable for framing" as the old saying goes).

I grew up with these stories, and I in turn read them to my children as bedtime stories. They love the stories and pictures and ask me to read them repeatedly. Of all the books I read to them, this book and the "Peach Boy" volume are their favorites.