cover image My Japan

My Japan

Etsuko Watanabe, . . Kane/Miller, $14.95 (40pp) ISBN 978-1-933605-99-9

Including everything from diagrams for using Asian-style toilets to the contents of a kindergartener’s schoolbag, this French import presents a small-format visual dictionary of life in Japan. Densely packed spreads show seven-year-old Yumi in everyday surroundings—in her kitchen, her school, her grandparents’ house—while text and additional spot illustrations supply information about objects and terms that will be new to most readers: yukata (a summer robe made of cotton) and hanetsuki (a traditional New Year’s game), for example. Watanabe’s workmanlike acrylics, flat and primitive-looking, focus on conveying as much visual information as possible. Some perplexing questions remain—what exactly is the mysterious door in the floor of Yumi’s kitchen? Watanabe’s most valuable contribution may be to show a jumble of homegrown Japanese objects and foreign imports—e.g., the pageful of Japanese dishes with the plate of spaghetti and the hamburger included among them—a jumble that characterizes not only the Japanese experience, but the rest of the global community’s as well. Ages 5–9. (Mar.)