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Namakura
(Good-for-Nothing)
Text by Michio Yoshihashi
Ill. by Makiko Sato
Tokyo: Kodansha, 2005
226 pp: 188 x 128 mm
ISBN : 4-06-269354-2
Ages : 13+
Historical novel, Boy’s Growth, Friendship
Noma Prize for Juvenile Literature 2006 |
This book is a gem of a collection of 7 stories, each about a young boy regarded as a good-for-nothing. The stories are set about 140 years ago, at the transition from the Edo to Meijiera when Japan was moving towards modernization. This book chronicles the lives of 7 boys living on the back streets of pomp-filled Kyoto including Natsukichi, who is involved in hauling fish on behalf of his sick father, Yakichi who has left his hometown and works at a whetstone mine and Hankichi who collects ashes for dyeing. The boys work desperately hard to escape poverty but they cannot see any hope in their future. In such circumstances it would be easy for them to yield to temptation and to take the wrong direction in life. Instead each boy tries to find his own way of living, supported by the warm sympathy of his family and friends. Through vivid descriptions of the struggles and development of these boys in the late Edo era, this book succeeds in showing the value of hard work and the meaning of life to today’s children.
Michio Yoshihashi was born in Okayama Prefecture in 1944 and graduated from Hohsei University. He received the Mainichi Award for New Writer of Children’s Stories with Tambataro (1979) and the Japanese Association of Writers for Children Prize with Kyo no Kazaguruma (Pinwheel in Kyoto, 1988). He is a talented writer of historical fiction for children and his other works include Ryu to Maihime (A Dragon and a Dancing Princess, 2000), Kaze no Mori no Yui (Yui of the Wind Forest, 2003) and Mannen Hoi (Halloo, Mannen, 2004). |
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