ゆっくりおやすみ、樹の下で

A nostalgic, philosophical children's novel

ゆっくりおやすみ、樹の下で is a children's book about a little girl named Mirei who goes to spend the summer at her estranged grandmother's house. This book was written by Genichiro Takahashi, an author and literary critic famous for his surrealist, postmodern debut novel さようなら、ギャングたち.

This book uses plenty of kanji but has full furigana, however the physical book is a tiny little bunko so the pages are crowded (there was evidently also a tankobon edition which is larger, but I haven't found it, so it may be out of print).

Sentences tend to be long (the narrator loves parenthetical asides (and so do I)) yet there were few obscure grammar points, so once you get used to the style it's actually pretty easy. Vocabulary-wise it's also not that difficult — by comparison, I found the vocabulary in ふしぎ駄菓子屋 銭天堂 significantly more challenging. The book overall seems a bit long for a kid's book (about 300 pages) but the chapters are extremely short (always 3 pages), which is a blessing.

The plot doesn't start moving at all until page 40, and it's not until the halfway point that anything really momentous actually happens. So, admittedly, it has an exceptionally slow pace — however, the little hints of future secrets to be revealed were enough to keep me reading, and along the way I enjoyed the idyllic setting, the references to various works of literature, and the likable characters, particularly the narrator's gentle but humorously self-aware voice. It has a bittersweet ending that makes the slow pacing worthwhile. To be honest, I absolutely adored this book. Despite being a children's novel, it's written in a way that even adults can enjoy.

I would not necessarily recommend this as a first book to read in Japanese, due to the lengthy sentences, but if you like children's literature it would make a very good second or third book. I think the short, almost stand-alone chapters would be perfect material for assigned reading in a classroom or for going over with a tutor.

Content warning: the dog dies in the end.