THE FIRST BOOK OF JAPAN

By way of stories that follow the daily lives of two young children Ichiro and Toshiko Matsumoto, in a Tokyo family-an engaging first acquaintance with the country. Their house, the tea ceremony, school, flower arrangement, games and even bathing are some of the glimpsed aspects of daily life, and in passages that use the Matsumotos as a point of departure, we learn about a whole lot of other things- religion, history and geography, festivals and the Kabuki theatre, government and post-occupation westernization. Harsh issues like the war and occupation have not been overlooked, but are treated with a dignity that respects eastern culture. Kathleen Elgin's dry brush illustrations look like Japanese prints and are quite beautiful.