Six days to Christmas, are you getting ready for the holiday weeks?  Here in Bologna it already snowed once earlier in December. My son still plays outside but much less. All the more days to stay inside and to read books! Last month, our Japanese children's book collection was greatly expanded. Thanks to a new Japanese friend of mine whom I met at the book reading session in the city's library I previously talked about , we were invited to a semi-closed Japanese children's book fair held at the Far-Eastern Art Study Centre of Bologna. Allegedly, it was a rare occasion that the centre was giving away some of their children's literature collections at a bargain price as their library was getting overloaded by books annually donated by Japanese publishers come to the Bologna Children's Book Fair. It was really a cold and cloudy day and I had no way of leaving my son with anyone but taking him with me on the twenty minute bike ride to get there, but I did it, and glad