by Yoshinko Uchina
In this rather lengthy picture book, the main character, Takashi, lives in Sugi Village, Japan, with his mother, father and sister Kaya, as well as grumpy Mr. Toda who lives next door. One day in December, Kaya comes home telling about a holiday she learned about at school--Christmas. The family has never heard of Christmas before, and is very excited to try to celebrate the upcoming holiday. The kids decide to try and decorate a Christmas tree and make all kinds of paper ornaments, but then have problems finding the perfect tree to put them on. Takashi spots the perfect tree--but it is in Mr. Toda's yard. On Christmas Eve, Takashi and Kaya decide to sneak over to his yard and decorate the tree without Mr. Toda's permission. The next morning, Mr. Toda sees the tree and is overjoyed, since he has never had a Christmas tree before, as well as never being told about Christmas. The neighborhood kids all come to see this tree, and (no longer grumpy) Mr. Toda tells Takashi that he may decorate this tree every Christmas since it is so beautiful, giving the story the name of the Forever Christmas Tree.
I enjoyed this story, and think that it would be very interesting to read to students around the holidays. In the US, it would be nearly impossible to find a student that has not heard of Christmas, so they might find the story even more interesting. Personally, the story was a bit long to keep the interest of a younger child if read aloud, but might be appropriate if read by an older student by themselves.
After reading a bit more about the author, I learned that Uchida lived from 1921-1992, and was a Japanese-American writer. During the times of WWII and Pearl Harbor, her family was put into one of the Japanese internment camps. While there, Uchida taught school in the camp. Eventually, she was allowed to leave to go to graduate school. Throughout her career, Uchida published more than 30 books, including nonfiction for adults and fictional picture books. The most interesting thing I learned about the author came from the following quote:
"I try to stress the positive aspects of life that I want children to value and cherish. I hope they can be caring human beings who don't think in terms of labels--foreigners or Asians or whatever--but think of people as human beings. If that comes across, then I've accomplished my purpose."Other titles by Yoshinko Uchina include:
The Terrible Leak, The Dancing Kettle and other Japanese Folk Tales, New Friends for Susan, The Magic Listening Cap, The Full Circle, Sumi's Prize, In-Between Maya, Samurai of Gold Hill, The Bracelet, Best Bad Thing, Magic Purse, Two Foolish Cats, The Wise Old Woman, Tears of Autumn, and many, many others.
**Author information found from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yoshiko_Uchida#cite_ref-nytimes_0-0
No comments:
Post a Comment