No. 4 (March 2004) Contents & Summaries of some articles

Comments on the International Symposium on the History of the Hans Christian Andersen Award"

by Tayo Shima (the former president of the JBBY)

On the first of December 2003, the ILCL and the JBBY (Japanese Board on Books for Young People) cooperatively held the "International Symposium on the History of the Hans Christian Andersen Award," and this is a report from a moderator of the symposium. The following three people were invited as lecturers and panel members: Ms. Leena Maissen (ex-Executive Director of the IBBY (International Board on Books for Young People)) from Switzerland, Mr. Jay Heale (former President of the 2000 and 2002 Hans Christian Andersen Award Jury) from South Africa, and Ms. Aidan Chambers (the winner of the Hans Christian Andersen Award 2002 for writing) from England. In the first part of the symposium, Ms. Maissen lectured on the past 30 years' history of organizing the award, Ms. Heale lectured on the selection process for the award, and Ms. Chambers lectured on "Who are the authors of children's books?" The second part of the symposium was a panel discussion. This report summarizes their answers to the questions asked, such as "Were you a child who loved books?" "Were there any books which internally influenced you when you grew up?" and "If there were any adults who influenced your reading, please talk about he or she."

"Reference questions that I will never forget"

by Kikuko Sugiyama (librarian at Tokyo Metropolitan Tama Library)

Ms. Sugiyama has many experiences as a librarian helping people find "the books they read in their childhood." Those are a variety of books from classics to the ones already forgotten. When they can find the books, they all are pleased. Some can say nothing more than "yes, this is the one" and break into tears. She wanted to know how the books which people met in their childhood and could not forget have had places in their minds and how the books have been translated in their internal world. Two years ago, Ms. Sugiyama was working at the ILCL and she received one answer to this question. A seventy- year-old man was looking for a picture of an old man and animals around the irori (fireplace). She found the picture for him in the "Nihon Dowa Shu -Collection of Japanese Fairy Stories." It is Picture 1 on p.23, on the left. The old man wrote to express his appreciation, saying that he had vaguely remembered it as a picture illustrating "happiness." He himself sometimes drew a picture similar to the one in his memory in his letters to his friends. That is Picture 2 on p.23, on the right. By comparing those two pictures, we can see how the old man had developed the image of the book he read.

Children's books from abroad in the ILCL collections: The Russian children's books from the Kanako Tanaka Collection

by Sayaka Matsuya (researcher of Russian children's literature)

The ILCL acquired about 3,700 Russian books which the late Ms. Kanako Tanaka had collected. Ms. Tanaka was a translator of Russian children's literature. She was born in 1931, studied Russian literature at a teacher's college in China, and traveled to many places in Russia as a tour guide, as well as translating and studying Russian children's books. In this report, Ms. Matsuya introduces major works included in the collection in each of the following three categories of books: books before the Revolution and in the Soviet Union era, picture books, and books of folklore.