It’s raining today and quite comfortable to spend a day. 

No swimming class at school for my children, so I read them several books.

One of them was The Gift of Life 「生んでくれてありがとう」, written by Yoh Shomei.

Both the story and the pictures are tremendously beautiful.  Whenever I read this book, I can’t stop the tears from running down my face.

The story is written both in Japanese and English.

After my kids went to a kid’s center to play, I read the books again in English.

Now my heart is filled with warm feeling.

CEPIOでのレッスンも気がつけば５０レッスンを終了し、一通りの発音の学習は終了しました。これからは、文章を読むときのリズムを勉強していきます。

今、取り組んでいるのが、モーリス・センダック作の　Where the Wild Things Are　「かいじゅうたちのいるところ」　という絵本です。

最近映画化もされ、ご存じの方も多いと思います。

なかなか、難しいですがとても興味を持ってレッスンに取り組んでいます。

前回、モーリス・センダック氏の絵本について書いたブログも立ち寄ってください。

子供たちが通う小学校で、週に１度読み聞かせのボランティアに行ってます。

その小学校では１，２年生のみ、水曜日の１時間目が始まる前の１５分間、読み聞かせの時間を取ってくれています。３年生以上はその時間に、自分で本を読んでいます。

私の個人的な希望としては、３年生以上も自分で読むのではなく、読み聞かせをしてあげたいなあと思うのですが、なかなかそれは実現できません。

お姉ちゃんの時からこのボランティアを始めて、３年目になりますが、どの子も絵本は大好きです。子供たちのまっすぐな瞳にみつめられ、どの子も想像の世界に浸っているその瞬間に立ち会うことが出来る幸せをかみしめています。

絵本は自分に子供が出来てから、その魅力に取りつかれるようになりました。

気にいった本はすぐに買っていましたが、だんだん置く場所に困るようになり、最近は欲しいと思ってもしばらく考えるようにしています。

先日、ブログで紹介した、吉田遠志さんの動物絵本シリーズも欲しいと思いながらまだ買ってません。数か月待ってみてその時もまだ買いたいと思えば、その時に買おうかなあと、とても慎重になりました。

４年生になる長女も自分でももちろん本を読みますが、まだまだ読んでもらうことも大好きです。幼稚園の頃と比べて毎日読むということは少なくなりましたが、夕御飯の後などに時々読んでいます。

いつまで私に「読んで」と言ってくれるかわかりませんが、その期間が出来る限り長く続けばなあと、望まずにはいられません。

今日のお勧め絵本です。吉田遠志さんの動物絵本シリーズです。

お話もさることながら、絵がどれもとってもきれいで、私に孫が出来たら（いつのことやら）孫にも読んであげたい、素敵な素敵な絵本です。

１７冊ほど出ていて、まとめて買おうか、ライオンシリーズだけ買おうか思案中です。

My son has no kindergarten due to his class cosing caused by flu for 4 days.

We’ve just finised reading the book above.

The blue one is the book that one of my friends gave me the other day.

Her relative lives in Scotland and she got it from the relative.   

Her two daughters are my English class students and she thought it would be a good ieda to give the book to me so that all of my students can read it.

Accidentaly, that book is one of the series that I have.

The white book in the picture above is titled “We’re Going on a Bear Hunt”.

I found that those two books are written by the same writer.

The writer’s name is Michael Rosen. 

息子の幼稚園が、学年閉鎖のため月曜日から二人で過ごしています。

今日、読んだ絵本を紹介します。

この2冊のうち、青い方は先日お友達からいただいたもの。私の英語教室に、姉妹で来てくれている生徒さんのお母さんから。彼女の従妹がスコットランドに住んでいて、送ってきてくれたそうです。

英語教室の他の生徒さんも楽しめるように、との彼女のご厚意をありがたくお受けしました。

中を見てびっくり！私が持っていた別の絵本、（写真の白い方の絵本）のシリーズだったのです。

英語を子供に触れさせたい、というお考えのお母様方にお勧めの本です。繰り返し文が多く、英語のリズムも良く考えられているので、私の子供も大好きです。

My son had no class today due to the influence of flu at his kindergarten, so we went to Esaka park to play.

  Esaka park is one of our family’s favorite places to go.  The color of cherry trees there was beautiful.  It was red, orange and brown. 

We bought some bread and soup for lunch at a bakery nearby.  They were good!

 After playing at the park for a while, we went to a bookstore “Crayon House” beside the park.  In the store, there is a table and we can read books there.  Not only books but also European toys they sell and kids can play with those toys, too.  That’s why we can spend hours there.

 I met my son’s friend of kindergarten and her mother in the shop.  She was looking for a picture book for her German friend and her child who have just gone back to their country.  She chose a Japanese picture book called “Odekake no Maeni”, Before our Picnic.  I also have the same book.  She bought an English version of the book for herself.  Looking at the English translation, she added the translation into the Japanese book she bought for the German friend so that she can understand the meaning of the book.

 How sweet her idea was!   I’m sure her friend will love the book.

 After spending some time in the shop, my son and I went back to the park again.  While looking at my son’s playing, I felt happiness and peace.

Yesterday, I attended a lecture about picutre books by Chihiro Iwasaki held at the kindergarten my son goes to.   

Chihiro Iwasaki is one of the best known picture book writers in Japan.   She died 35 years ago.

The lecturer was Yuriko Matsumoto who had been the wife of Chihiro’s son.  

She is now a sub-director of  the two Chihiro Art Museums in Tokyo and Nagano.

According to Ms. Matsumoto, though she got divorced 20 years ago, she still has a good relationship with her ex-husband as a bussiness partner.

She introduced a lot of Chihiro’s paintings and the prudent meaning of each work that had been preocccuping Chihiro’s mind.

She drew a lot of children’s faces.   But in almost all her works, Chihiro didn’t paint the color of  children’s hair.    Sometimes she didn’t draw a face line nor eyebrows.   According to Ms. Matsumoto, Chihiro intentionally stop painting at 60 ％ of the completion.    It’s difficult to explain in English.   But Chihiro wanted to leave the rest of 40 ％ of the each work  to every reader’s imagination.

That’s why whenever people look at a child  she painted, they are reminded of their children or their grandchildren.

Ms. Matsumoto introduced us how much Chihiro had been worried about Vietnam War and the World War Ⅱ.   She introduced several drawings that showed babies, children, and mothers during those wars.    When I looked at those drawings listening to the lecturer’s explanation, I couldn’t stop crying.

Chihiro really wanted  the whole world become the place where every single child can live happily without war or any child abuse.

That’s why she continued painting wonderful works until the last minute of her death.

I love picturebooks by Leo Lionni.    Both his pantings and the stories are beautiful.

Among his works, I love “Little Blue and Little Yellow” the most.

In Japanese the book is titled “Ao-kun to Kiiro-chan”, 「あおくんときいろちゃん」.

Leo Lionni’s picturebooks are very famous all over the world and are popular among Japanese mothers and children as well.

Whenever I read his books, I feel like I’m surrounded by comfortable warm wind.

Today my kids and I went to ‘Crayon House’, a book store in Esaka, Suita to participate a workshop of reading an English picturebook.    A friend of mine and her kids also attended it.

The book title is “The Happy Egg” written by Ruth Krauss.

I would say it was the first time for me to listen to a lecture about how to read aloud English picture books.   The lecturer is a chief cordinator of English picture books sold in ‘Crayon House’.  She also translate several books from English to Japanese.

She pointed out 4 important things to do when we read the book ‘The Happy Egg’.

First, we should follow a sentence on a page with our forefingers while reading.

Second, keep in mind to put a lot of feeling into the sentence.

Third, when we come across a word or words that we can’t read, we just say “Munya, munya,” I don’t know the proper word in English, we just bubble those words.

And lastly, the most important thing of all is we need to read aloud the book again at home within 24 hours from the time when the workshop started.    And she recommended us to read it to  anything alive.   It could be a goldfish or a plant.    

I learned a lot there.

After that,  we played at the park near the bookshop.  we stayed there nearly 4 hours.  I haven’t seen the friend lately so we talked a lot each other.

It was a good day.

I want to introduce some picture books by Maurice Sendak.  

・Alligators All Around

・One was Johnny

・Chiken Soup With Rice

・Pierre

These are my favorite books.   These four books are put in one box titled “NUTSHELL LIBRARY” and they are small sized, about 7cm by 5cm.  So it’s convenient to carry them in a bag.  My son also loves them.  You can enjoy those videos on You Tube.

In the Night Kitchen and Where The Wild Things  Are are also written by the same writer.

I  recommend you to watch those videos on You Tube, too.

The way he develops a story and draws  pictures on his books are quite unique and  completely different from Japanese picture books.