As the old Japanese saying goes, "February runs away," and the eventful March is coming in two days. Back in my home country, it is time for peach blossoms also admired on the occasion of the girl's festival, the third of March. I wish we had those delicate pink blossoms in our garden. But instead, we have pretty yellow flowers of mimosa started to open in time for the International Women's Day. Spring is just around the corner.
I said "eventful March" not only for my personal matters but also for my city, Bologna. In one week, the 60th edition of Bologna Children's Book Fair will be hosted here. This annual event, as a book fair exclusively dedicated to the market of children's literature, is the word's largest. Although the fair itself is a business-to-business event, there will also be various art, book, and educational side-events in town on this occasion.
It was back in 2019 that I attended the fair for the first time as part of my research for the graduate school. I was overwhelmed by the scale of the event, but enjoyed listening to presentations, seeing original works by the award-winning artists, and browsing sample books at the stands. This year, I am going back there after the three-year-break, hopefully to get more knowledge and networking in the industry.
By the way, did you enjoy my previous post about the Moomin book? Fortunately or unfortunately, my son still picks this book but anything new before bed. And during the day-time he proudly reads aloud the colourful car book or the Miffy's vocabulary book to tell me what colours and objects he knows there. Despite that he also spent more time than before in the children's library during the winter, not a single book we checked out could replace his fauvourite three.
That's why I don't really have a new book to talk about as something we regularly read together. He did love one book from the library just for a few days but I will write about it perhaps the next time. Today, I rather feel like talking about two books by an award-winning Spanish author Miguel Tanco I bought for my husband and for myself this month.
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As you may imagine from the book covers, one is about a boy and his dad, and the other is about a girl and her mom. As praised in the book review on the Washington post, the first title Me and you, you and me with "whimsical sketches, in black and yellow set against ample white s humour to the text" instantly attracted me when I spotted the Italian edition in the library.
Both titles are dedicated to ordinary scenes that many of parents can have with their little children. They remind us about embracing one's early parenthood or precious moments of infancy.
It didn't take a while before I decided to buy the original editions in English, the "boys" version for my husband, and the "girls" version for myself. The latter was published with the same style in illustration of the former but with red in place of yellow. I also checked out the Italian editions, which are larger as seen in the previous photo, from the library to compare the texts in both languages.
It is actually interesting to compare the same titles in two different languages. In fact, the Italian edition of the "boys" book is not entirely composed of word-for-word translation. For example, in this favourite scene of mine, the boy says to his dad, "I show you how to talk to strangers..." while chatting with a passenger in a tram. On the other hand, this line is translated in Italian as follows: "Ti mostro come farsi nuovi amici...," which literary means, "I show you how to make new friends...."
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I am curious why the Italian translator selected the word "amici," perhaps in Italy we may be more likely to make new friends after talking to a stranger on our way to somewhere. Then I start to ask myself if were to translate this book in my mother tongue (it's a pity that it hasn't been published yet in Japan!), which words I would select. Certainly not tomodachi which means friends, instead, I would probably translate this line as something like; "I show you how to break the ice..." or "Look dad, with me you never stay shy..." in Japanese.
Let me explain why: If you "speak to strangers" without a specific purpose, like to ask for a direction or a help, it could be awkward in the Japanese society where grownups are generally happen to be reserved. Thus, it also hardly ever happens to make new friends just after having chatted with strangers during a train-ride (oftentimes overly crowded) when you should respect silence as a public manner. Thus, in Japan, such an innocent action of this boy can especially be reserved to his age.
Anyway, I adore this tram scene because my son always greets strangers on the streets. Sometimes, he even says "ciaaaaaao" out loud to passengers or police officers inside a car he sees passing by from our second-floor terrace. If they look us up, I also smile at the sympathetic strangers going down the street. I am proud of my son's friendliness without a tiny fear or shyness, something I never had in my own childhood.
As it may happen to many of our parental colleagues, because of such nature of our innocent little one, we are always greeted at least by one stranger when going out with him. Sometimes we end up having a small talk. What a time-limited privilege before he grows up!
The other book, in which the girl shows such kinds of precious things to her mom, also fills me with sympathy. For example, in the first photo above you see a girl playing around her mom's legs leaned against a window overlooking their garden. Here the girl says, "I test your flexibility...." Although I never practice such an acrobatic yoga like this mother does, my son loves climbing up on me, often challenging my physical strength. I don't appreciate it if he jumps on my tummy though, and try to trick him to get me some back massage instead, but it's difficult to make him step on the right spots. Anyway, it surely makes intimate time together.
My favourite scene from this book, however, would be this one: The girl runs to her mom with her arms open to welcome her home, just like my son does. She says, "and I change your mood."--- That's true, even at the end of a bad day outside, the affectionate hugs by my loved one make my day!
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I truly wish these two great books be published in Japanese (and how wonderful if I could take part in the translation!) to be enjoyed by Japanese parents raising kids of our son's age, as well as by those for whom such demanding but precious time has passed, and by their children. It certainly is a book to be appreciated by adults or young adults regardless of whether they have a parenting experience.
I actually showed these books to my son, but as I could have imagined he didn't like them. I figure that they lack colourfulness for the two-your-old. Hopefully, he would appreciate them one day, allowing us to tell him stories we have had together in his early childhood.
Now, I should get back to some preparation for the book fair, so that's enough for today. Maybe I can share with you something from the fair in my next article. Guess what, the author of today, Miguel Tanco is also coming to the event, and I am hoping to tell him in person how much I love his books!
About today's book
You and Me, Me and You
Written and Illustrated by Miguel Tanco
Published in April 2017 by Chronicle Books
Translated in Italian, Spanish, Catalan, French, Korean, Chinese, and Hebraic as of February 2023
Written and Illustrated by Miguel Tanco
Published in March 2019 by Chronicle Books
Translated in Italian