I am a big fan of nonfiction picture books as a way to help Japanese language learners to take the next step after graded readers. Fiction picture books, folk tales, and books for the very young have vocabularies and grammar that native speaker children learn from their parents and grandparents, but nonnative speaking adults wouldn’t come across in their textbooks. Some folks are fine with it and figure it out, but others will be frustrated that they can’t understand something that a tiny tot can.

Nonfiction picture books are short – maybe 32 or 46 pages – and have plenty of illustrations to help with understanding the text.
I have a number of them in my READ Japanese collection, including biographies, history, social issues, etc.

Some, aimed at older Japanese kids are longer. The following series averages 80 pages. The reading age is just 小学生 but I would say that it would be really good for students in their 3rd or 4th year of Japanese – particularly students who are working on a project and want to read at least 1 book in Japanese.

At the moment I can’t remember if I have ordered these or not, so I am going to put the link in so I can come back to it.SDGs=Social Development Goals.
物語をとおしてSDGsを学ぶ、子ども向けの入門シリーズ「おはなしSDGs」（全10巻）。『みんなはアイスをなめている』『すし屋のすてきな春原さん』の2巻で刊行開始！
This set of 10 books covers a range of topics from poverty to pollution. It explains the issues in a story and then provides more information. The publisher is Kodansha, 2020-

For a list of the titles and ISBNs see ehonnavie here

Sample pages and an article about the series is here at Jiji.com.

Japan Writers’ Association 日本文芸家協会 is listed on several of the publisher home pages as handling rights for many of their authors.

On their page for Copyright Clearance there is a great deal of important information for you. To the right there is a list (choice of excel or html) of the authors they represent. When you open the list you will see if they have full or partial representation for each author. Below that are excel spreadsheet files for newly added authors, authors who have canceled their contracts, and authors they used to represent who are out of copyright from 2010 on. A careful look at these pages will save you a lot of time.

Once you have determined that the author you are interested in is represented by the JWACC, you need to check and see which request form 申請フォーム (shinsei fōm) you should fill out. Most of the forms about about broadcasting, putting images or excerpts on the web, using paragraphs in exams, requests for reprints, games, etc. But no.17 is the one that you need. 許諾申請についての相談用フォーム (kyodaku shinsei ni tsuite no sōdan fōm). On this form, you designate whether you are checking about an author that they have partial representation for or something else. This is the form that I think should be used to check and see if the rights are available to translate a particular book or story of an author they represent. If anyone knows for sure, I would be very grateful for confirmation.

Just a reminder that Japanese copyright rules are 70 years after the death of the author (and not 70s after publication of the work) so any of the stories by someone like Yoshiya Nobuko who published stories in the 1920s but lived until 1973 are protected by copyright. And, yes, 吉屋信子 is represented by JWACC.

The JWACC has a pdf dated 2016 著作権Q&A　翻訳権 is covered under article 27 of the copyright law.

A translation is considered a derivative work (in Japanese 二次的使用)　along with adaptation (like creating a manga based on a novel). 二次使用 and 二次的使用 are different. Niji shiyo is a reuse (publishing it in an anthology for example) but without any changes. Nijiteki shiyo is an adaptation. Good and easy explanation <a href="http://jibunkyo.main.jp/index.php/guide3" here="" at the Nihon Jido bungakusha kyokai copyright guide.

This is a huge topic and yet a relatively simple one. It wasn’t really a problem in the old paper-based world because if you translated something that you loved, it was a private affair. You might share it with your friends or turn it in as an assignment, but it wasn’t public or published. Now that so many people are posting things to the Internet and they are being made widely available, it is critical that people understand rights and permissions so that they don’t get into trouble.

I have to admit that it is taking me a long time to really understand the process – both theoretical and practical – since I am not a translator myself. But I have been on a quest this summer to get a better handle on it so that I can advise people more accurately about their options. And this has meant talking with published translators about their experiences and their advice. Almost everyone has at least one or more bad experiences that they don’t necessarily want to share, and I don’t blame them, but if we can sluice their experiences we can get the nuggets of gold out and that would be an excellent thing.

I started out by thinking that translators needed to contact the copyright holder for permission, and so I was always careful to show people colophons and how to read them. But as one translator pointed out to me, that is really more about legalities of royalties than permissions, and the publisher is usually the gateway to permissions.

So how do you track down the right department in a publishing company and how do you make contact? On a website, you need to look for either the foreign rights department or the rights department.

Here is an example:
Kodansha 講談社
Look for the about page – in Japanese 会社情報
Then you will see a section called 版権・著作権・出版物.
The contact information is divided up by the kinds of rights/license requests.
Foreign rights falls here:
海外における小社刊行物の映像化・商品化などについて
国際ライツ事業部
TEL: 03-5395-3576 / FAX:03-5395-7058

Notice that this is no form or email contact information provided for overseas users. The English link on Kodansha’s home page takes you to a brochure, but at least that provides some information. Kodansha USA – should be a good source, but at the moment (August 2020) its website only contains audio files for its Japanese language textbooks.

Iwanami Shoten 岩波書店
Iwanami makes it really easy. Click on the English page and right there is an email address for its Foreign Rights and Permissions Department. Thanks Iwanami!

Bungei Shunjusha 文藝春秋社
At the bottom of the main page is a link for all kinds of inquiries:) Scroll down until you find the section on copyright and permissions 著作権に関するお問い合わせ. Partway down you will see an email address for the Rights Business Division ライツビジネス部　mail : rights-g@bunshun.co.jp. I heard from a friend, that it may take a few weeks to process requests because of the volume they receive, but they will respond.

Shinchosha 新潮社
In the case of Shinchosha, the 会社情報 page just gives the basic facts about the company. Instead you have to look at the very bottom of the page for the お問い合わせ page. There is a list of headings for inquiries, but nothing about overseas.
転載、教育利用などにおける小社刊行物の利用について is the section you want. It says that almost all rights are handled by these two organizations.
日本文藝家協会 http://www.bungeika.or.jp/
日本ビジュアル著作権協会 https://www.jvca.gr.jp/
And for the ones not covered by these two, there is a form you can fill out to ask.