pick3.5/5 🌟
This Japanese novel is anything but cozy. It follows a young woman, pregnant out of wedlock, facing her parents' disapproval and surviving an abusive, alcoholic father. Her journey through childbirth, work struggles, and finding childcare is raw and challenging.
It started strong, but by the end, my interest had faded.
pickGreat guide to yokai!(Japanese monsters) and how to survive them!
pickFascinating memory of noodle delivery in the first half of the 20th C Japan. It will leave you hungry for soba.
panI didn't realise this was an evangelical book when I picked it up at my local free library. It's a short story about "Jiro", a Japanese kid the author taught at the Christian College in Tokyo. It would be "So-so" if there wasn't some judgment passed on Japanese culture. It's mostly a nice story about a boy who becomes disabled and struggles with it throughout his life. Then he gets seriously ill and is saved by God ?
Not my cup of tea.
"After a heavy storm one night the snow had piled into four-foot-high drifts outside the classroom window. So Jiro suggested to the boys in his class in a second-floor room that when the next teacher was busy writing on the blackboard, they should all jump quietly out of the windows onto the snow below. (...) When the surprised teacher finally turned around, there wasn't a boy left in the class!"
Now that's a pretty cool prank!
I wouldn‘t use this book in my classroom. It seems a little long and not made for a lesson, I would have it around for fun
pickI loved the story of this book and it was very interesting learning that this does happen in Tokyo. Made me want noodles!
pickI already mentioned my current obsession with Japan. So this book, with 100 short funny anecdotes about Japanese culture, language, history and habits, was a treat to read!
