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Watashino Sukina Hito
(My Favorite Man)
Text by Sumiko Yatsuka
Ill. by Makoto Weda
Tokyo: Kodansha Ltd., 2006
207 pp: 128 x 188 mm
ISBN : 978-4-06-213279-4
Ages : 13+
Family, Love, Friendship
Noma Prize for Juvenile Literature 2006 |
This is a story of Sayaka, a twelve-year-old-girl, and her love story. What makes it unique is that whom she secretly admires is thirty-six years old. This fine piece of work unfolds Sayaka’s fresh yet painful feelings; she struggles how she cannot share her emotion and how she cannot mutually understand because of the age difference. Sayaka lives with her father who owns a small factory, her older brother, and the factory employee named Sugita. Sayaka quietly thinks of Sugita however the life totally changes when her father falls ill. Simultaneously Sugita’s secret past unveils and the story ends with a surprise.
Sumiko Yatsuka, born in 1950 in Hiroshima, won Japanese Association of Writers for Children Prize with Seishun Kouro Fenikkusu Maru (The Marine Crane of Youth, Phoenix, 1993). Her other major works include Hanamaru Nichiyo-Bi (Good Luck Sunday, 2001), Umide Mitsuketa Koto (What We Found at Sea, 2003), Shinta-no Amerika Monogatari (Shinta’s American Story, 1997), Nettai Urin Kara Yahhoh (Hello from the Tropical Rain Forest, 2000) and Oretachi no Doriimu Factorii (Our Dream Factory, 1999) |
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