As a digital subscriber, you’ll receive unlimited access to Horn Book web exclusives and extensive archives, as well as access to our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database.
To access other site content, visit The Horn Book homepage.
To continue you need an active subscription to hbook.com.
Subscribe now to gain immediate access to everything hbook.com has to offer, as well as our highly searchable Guide/Reviews Database, which contains tens of thousands of short, critical reviews of books published in the United States for young people.
Thank you for registering. To have the latest stories delivered to your inbox, select as many free newsletters as you like below.
No thanks. Return to article
Words to Make a Friend: A Story in Japanese and English
40 pp.
| Random/Random House Studio |
November, 2021 |
TradeISBN 978-0-593-12227-3$17.99
|
LibraryISBN 978-0-593-12228-0$20.99
|
EbookISBN 978-0-593-12229-7$10.99
(2)
K-3
Illustrated by
Naoko Stoop.
In this bilingual book, a child moving into a new home sees the girl next-door frolicking in the snow and joins her. Speech balloons (the book's only text) contain their simple conversation, starting with "Hello" and the new girl's "Konnichiwa" in response, followed by "Let's play!" and “Asobou!" Many of their words are onomatopoeic: they hear a woodpecker and reply, "Peck peck" / "Kotsu kotsu"; while packing the snow for a snowman they say, "Nade nade" / "Pat pat pat." When they "Shiver shiver" / "Buru buru," it's time to head inside. The girls dry off, fold origami, and have some tea ("Huu huu" / "Blow blow"). Back to playing, they laugh together, and their final words are fittingly the same: "Ha ha ha!" Stoop (Sun and Moon Have a Tea Party, rev. 7/20) uses mixed-media on plywood to create cozy pictures of the children's play, both indoors and out. Inside, the wood is cleverly left bare and used to depict floors; in outdoor scenes the woodgrain, lightly covered, looks like clouds. The characters' perfectly round heads, with simple dots for eyes, resemble those in the books of Gyo Fujikawa, known for her early inclusion of non-white characters; Stoop's Japanese child here befriends a brown-skinned curly-haired girl. Both author and illustrator include notes at the back on their own experiences with language and friendship. Minor quibbles: a pronunciation guide would have been helpful, and the Japanese word hashi appears incorrectly as haji.