Sharon Domier's blog

musings about East Asian studies librarianship, research using Japanese and Chinese language resources, and fabulous new finds on the Internet

Informational picture books

November 19, 2019 by sdomier · No Comments · Uncategorized

I feel like the genre of informational picture books deserves a great deal more attention. When the Japanese educational system finally started supporting independent research projects as opposed to making students regurgitate facts learned in school textbooks, a new genre developed called ???????????????????), ??????(???????????),??????????????or even ???????????). The beauty of these books is that they are short like picture books (generally 40-60 pages), fully annotated with furigana, and include photographs or images of primary source materials. I have had a lot of luck recommending them to students working on senior theses or independent projects. Many of them are listed as appropriate for mid-elementary school or higher.

I have collected a number of series that can be used to either supplement readings in Tobira or at a higher level. We have also used them in Japanese literature in translation classes to give students visuals to accompany their readings.

?????????????? is leveled at ????? and includes Taketori monogatari, Genji monogatari, Heike monogatari, Makura no soshi, Tsurezuregusa, and Oku no hosomichi.

????????? is published by Poplar. There are at least 14 volumes in this set. Another set that gets used is

??????????????? is an older series published by Akane Shobo that is very useful for providing students with the vocabulary, maps, and images used in Japanese. As I look at the offerings at Akane Shobo, I see that many of the newer titles now have ????????????????? I see some really good ones including language studies, social conditions, history, etc.

What I am differentiating between is ???? and ????. Here are some examples of informational picture books that I think could easily be incorporated into 3rd or 4th year classes or independent reading. A number of them are reference books and not something that most people would read like a comic, but for students who are building their vocabulary in a particular field, super effective.

????? Fukuinkan Shoten published a soft-cover monthly book/magazine called ?????????? Gekkan Takusan no fushigi that is science-oriented or nonfiction. The monthly publication doesn’t have an ISBN. Many of the titles are also published in hardcover if they are popular under the series ??????????? Takusan no fushigi kessakush?. The reading level is listed as ????? and up, so it really is a perfect reading level for students interesting in reading nonfiction. The category listed is: ???????? (science picture books, zukan)

Examples of titles that I have purchased for my collection include: ??????????? Watashi ga gaijin datta koro, which is the autobiography of the famous Japanese historian and philosopher Tsurumi Shunsuke, graduate of Harvard who was deported from the United States in 1942 along with a number of other Japanese nationals living in the US at the time.

?????? Wagashi no hon is a zukan. That means that there can be a lot of informational text to accompany the images. A student could, of course, just look at the pictures, but most are also interested in the text. In the beginning I gave these lower reading levels, but students asked me to reassess and so I have.

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