Japanese Folktales for Children: Book Review

            Japanese Folktales for Children by Ty Hulse is a collection of short stories. One tale is of a village and their kami. A kami is "a magical spirit which is usually helpful and which a person should respect." One day the kami looks in a stream and finds out he is ugly and runs away to hide his face. The kami brings good crops for the villagers so they must find a way to bring him back. Another tale is of a poor, little old woman who laughs all the time and makes the best rice dumplings so the people call her the "Laughing Dumpling." When one of her dumplings rolls off the table and out the door, she runs after it and ends up following the dumpling down a hole in the ground where her adventure begins. This is a cute little tale and I enjoyed it most of all. The tales flow quickly and are easy to read and understand. The illustrations are simple and charming. They look to be pencil drawings with great colors, sometimes vibrant and sometimes soft. I'm not an artist but I liked the artwork. They complement the stories well. I believe the author is also the illustrator. There are some typos in the text but I think that is due to the translation from Japanese to English. I have never really understood the meaning behind the stories of folktales wherever they originated, however I did enjoy these tales. 

Rating: 4/5

Recommend: I would recommend this book to everyone even though it says it is written for children.


Where to find: Zeluna.net, Amazon