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About

Hello, I am a book lover and a mother of a boy born in 2020 here in Bologna.

He has an Italian dad, and a Japanese mum (me!) and will most likely grow up in Italy. 

We usually speak Italian at home, and occasionally English. But I also try to speak to him in Japanese, as much as possible. 

How can we manage the trilingual education? To start with, I'd decided to read books to him in three languages even before he spoke a word. Let's see what this experiment brings to us!

Because I currently live in Italy, majority of books I write about on this blog may tend to be Italian. However, if I find them also published in English, I will refer to the English titles.

A little bit more about myself

Since long before I became a mother, I have always been crazy for illustrated books for children and also interested in multilingual book reading for educational purposes. 

I even discussed creativity and sustainability issue in the children's literature industry for my Master's thesis in Cultural Economics for the University of Bologna, centring my argument around some clues to boost the culture and the market of reading.

Prior to that, I was a globetrotter. Up to the beginning of 2020, I had travelled to 40 countries on business and on vacation, and published my travel photos here. 

Reading and writing have always been my passion. Aside from this blog, I contribute articles about life in Italy to Japanese media.

I am excited about launching my very first personal blog and look forward to meeting other book lovers, parents, educators, and somebody interested in multilingual education.

This blog does not have a comment form, however, I will be happy to hear from the readers. Please feel free to write me via the contact form you find on the top right menu icon, or via Instagram message form.           

The blog owner, Yasue


To know more about what I do, jump to my bio on Linktree.




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Joy of parenthood

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 resear...
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How does it sound when fallen leaves are dancing in the air?

Autumn is perhaps the best time for kids to have fun in the nature. My son enjoys walking on the fallen leaves, finding acorns and chestnuts in the woods. So the heroine of this book is. This Japanese book I found in my favourite library in Bologna features a story of this girl enjoys walking in the autumn nature. She finds fallen leaves, acorns, bagworms, dragonflies and imitates their movement, as if to dance with them.  The joy of reading this book aloud together with my son is perhaps attributed to the many Japanese onomatopoeias to be found throughout the book. For example, to describe the sound she makes when walking on the ground covered with autumn leaves,  we read, "kasa kasa kasa,"  and if fallen leaves are turning around slowly in the air, we say,  "kuru, kuru, kururi ." How about in your language? I also love the warm watercolour tones of the illustration by Michiko Egashira, the author. At the end of the story, after her father joins her walk, she finds...
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The magic of Taro Gomi and penguins

Hello, I am here! It's been wow, half a year that I didn't show up here. Dear readers, are you still there?  I didn't write this long for some health and other personal reasons but it doesn't mean I stopped reading books with my son.  We are still in Japan. In the past months here I discovered and rediscovered many beautiful Japanese children's literature and foreign books translated in Japanese. These are just a few of many I got. We will take them all with us when we eventually return to Italy. My son turned 16 months and lately started to understand many things we say to him although he still speaks few words that make sense.  The way he reacts to books changed a lot, too. Now he picks his favourite books from the bookshelf and comes on my lap, asking me to read them aloud.  One of the most frequently picked ones are these two. One is "Who Ate It?" by Taro Gomi. As I read it, he points on the pictures to respond to my question, "who ate it?"  ...
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