Specs
Reviews
(4.31/5)Nice book!
Still reading it and as it is my first fully Japanese children's novel ( my version has furigana on all kanjis )it will take some time to finish. But that’s not the point. I entirely enjoy catching known words and feel my understanding growing the more I read. And that’s the good point it motivates me to go on reading other children’s books.
Heart warming
I loved this! I had the Aoitori edition, which had full furigana, and with the mainly N3 grammar, it was a very smooth and accessible read.
More than that, however, I adored the book! It was heart warming, funny, and bittersweet at times as it told トットちゃん's story in short chapters that were like snapshots of moments of her time at an alternative school for children outside the normal schooling system. While I was of course very attached to トットちゃん, I also thought that 小林先生 was an incredible person who I really admired.
Overall, this was a lovely read. Highly recommended! I borrowed a copy from the library but I think I might have to buy it now since it was so good!
An iconic piece of Japanese literature that's surprisingly fun and easy to read
I read this as part of a History of Japan class, but enjoyed it a lot more than I expected. It's usually summarized as the true story of 黒柳徹子 (Kuroyanagi Tetsuko)'s unusual primary school education in early-WW2 Japan, but that description doesn't sell it very well in my opinion. It's a collection of short stories from her life as a child— the friends she made, trouble she got into, and how her unconventional school worked to accommodate each student's individual needs.
I've heard this book is often read by students in Japanese schools, and I can see why. There are a few chapters I love so much I open it up just to reread them periodically. I think this book probably played a role in creating the "transfer to a strange school" trope in a lot of modern anime/manga (this is my personal unfounded conjecture though).
Edit to add: There's an audiobook narrated by the author herself on audiobook.jp (and maybe elsewhere), which is another great way to experience this book if that's more your speed. Even just listening to the sample might give you a good idea of the sentence flow that she's going for here.
This is an autobiographical memoir written in 1981 by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, an actress, TV personality, and UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador. It recalls her time attending an unconventional and progressive elementary school as a little girl in the early years of WWII.
Totto-chan is sent to this odd school because she has been expelled. From the first grade. Nowadays such a child would probably be referred for ADHD testing, but in WWII Japan she was simply expelled from first grade, and in desperation her mother brings her to an experimental school housed in a collection of old train cars. The student body is unusually diverse and includes children with disabilities which mainstream schools of the time were not set up to handle. Everything at this school, from lessons to meals to sports day, is done differently, with an eye toward making all of the children feel welcomed and included.
The sentences in this can be a bit on the long side, but they’re written with an abundance of commas to mark off phrase chunks. For example, here’s a medium sentence:
運んできたお兄さん達は、太い丸太を、何本も電車の下に敷いて、少しずつ、その上を、ころがすようにして、電車を、トラクターから、校庭へとおろしていった。
Depending on where you are in Japanese studies, this might make it easier or harder to read.
I didn’t finish this book. It’s a longtime bestseller so clearly many people have loved it, but I just didn’t get into it. When I’m reading (slowly) in Japanese, I prefer books which are faster paced to help pull me along. This seems a sweet story and I actually feel bad that I didn’t finish it, but reading as a language student is hard enough that it helps to have some cheap and easy rewards, and this isn’t that sort of book.
Good for learners
How enjoyable this book is, very much depends on how much the reader enjoys a slow wholesome diary as exposure to bite-size Japanese language.
Useful for learning: (1) Generally readable around N3 level. There are some N1 grammar points but nothing too intense and it should be easy to grasp with a few searches. (2) In the version I read (kindle digital) vocabulary is useful daily, difficult words are marked with furigana the first time they appear so that is helpful. (3) The story itself is split into very short chapters with very weak linkages to each other. Can be read in 10-15 mins for busy learners who seek bite-size inputs.
It reads like a diary and not a story: Plot development and character development were not that strong other than the main character. The ending is a little sad as well and ends on a low note. I do understand the literary value and the thought provocation this book brings to local readers who resonate more with the Japanese education system.