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 ...

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...

Hi there. I am writing this post from Bologna, Italy where we moved back from Japan in the mid-summer.  It has been a great year for my son to get to know his Japanese grandparents, family, and friends he made there.  He is shortly turning two years old, and is more attracted than ever to words. So we have much more fun reading books together.  Every page of the books is filled with images that make him a curious boy. He can't help pointing at them and saying "Oh? Ah?" as if to ask "What's this?" In the beginning,  he was just doing this with illustrations, but now he also recognizes letters (both Japanese and English/Italian alphabets) and numbers, asking me how to pronounce them. And guess what, if I were perhaps half asleep and would answer him with the same words to different images, he would immediately raises his voice and says "Ah! Ah!" to warn me.  Do you remember this Miffy's picture book I previously talked about ? He still loves it a...

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?"  ...

I am back! How have you been? A few months ago, we finally flew to my homeland, Japan. So I am writing this post from the house where I grew up! It's been quite a journey. You have no idea how much bureaucracy and nonsense we had to deal with, thanks to our government still closes the border and sets a lot of restrictions for those who, even Japanese citizens, wish to cross it.  Contrary to the life in Europe which was almost back to normal by the time we left there, life here is very quiet under the state of emergency being repeatedly extended.  Due to that, the kindergartens are still closed for toddlers, kids' events in the community have constantly been cancelled, and my son hardly ever gets to meet new friends of his age.  Nevertheless, I am so happy to be home. Most importantly, our son finally met his Japanese grand parents and he can play with them everyday for the next ten months! I had never seen my parents this happy.  My son looks very happy, too. He love...

It’s June. Seasons go around and we are entering the summer again. As it already feels so hot to walk around the city during the day (how would I survive again this coming midsummer scorcher?), our daily “passeggiata” has been shifted to the riverside walk.   Fortunately, we live by the river and are surrounded by lots of greens that give us shelter from the reflected heat of the sun. So, during the day we go for a short walk in the woods along the river, and in the early morning or in the evening, if we feel like, go for an hourlong walk to the upstream crossing two bridges. I like walking on the bridges, especially the suspension bridge which was recently reopened several blocks up from our street. There is a panorama from the bridge in which we can spot some couples and flocks of birds (and even fish!), and cool air breezing up from the river. It’s really refreshing and I feel that the summer has come.  It’s been a while since I became a citizen of the world, and now I...

In my last post, I wrote that I would like to look for more books for babies. A few days later, I received a thoughtful gift for my son from a friend of mine whom I hadn’t seen for half a year. It was this cute sensory book printed in black, white and a touch of yellow only. What a nice choice! She wasn’t reading my blog, but she knew what I was looking for! On the cover, it was written that “stimoli visivi in bianco e nero (visual stimuli in black and white).” I was curious why, especially because I’d remember reading an article that vivid colours would usually be used for toys and books for toddlers. This is because it takes several months for new-borns to start recognizing different colours, and pastel colours are the last to be recognized.   However, I discovered that this book was actually suitable for new-borns who still don’t even see colours. According to another article I found today, illustrations in black and white have high contrast and thus can be recognized by ne...