The children in the pages of Kodomo no kuni for the first ten years from its founding do not look much different from children now more than half a century later in the new millennium.   My Room January 1930. Okamoto Kiichi The School Outing May 1930. Fukuda Shinsei There are children wearing colorful dresses, chapeau, galloshes and umbrellas, mantles fluttering in the wind, in fur-collared winter coats, sitting beside windows with flowered curtains, eating strawberries at a table covered with a tablecloth, climbing on a jungle gym, gazing at a department-store window display with a Santa climbing into a chimney. By the end of the twentieth century, such scenes were a familiar part of daily life and lore for most Japanese citizens.   Stepping on Shadows October 1928. Isayama Yoshie Back cover July 1930. Fukuda Shinsei   The Piano July 1928. Okamoto Kiichi Studying November 1925. Ito Takashi     Feeding Baby October 1927. Okamoto Kiichi   The children in Kodomo no kuni seem to be enjoying the pleasures of modern city life. There are Western-style houses, trains and cars running along busy streets, airplanes flying in the sky, and subways passing beneath a townscape bristling with skyscrapers. What is different from now is the energy and cheerfulness with which people seemed to be looking forward to the happy future that materialistic prosperity would surely bring.   Jumping Rope March 1931. Kawashima Haruyo The Little Traffic Controller May 1930. Okamoto Kiichi     At the Department Store February 1932. Yasui Koyata   Taisho Romanticism was a product of the age when Japan's drive to catch up with the modern West, begun at the start of the Meiji era in 1868, was nearly realized. The urban surroundings of the children in the pages of Kodomo no kuni in the1920s are almost foreign. Here is the world that reflects the Japanese conviction that Japan would sooner or later be wealthier and more powerful, a confidence that was bolstered by success in rapid modernization.   Writing New Year's Cards December 1922. Honda Shotaro Babies of Japan, Britain, United States, France, and Italy January 1931. Okamoto Kiichi Children and adults cheered as they gaze up at the Zeppelin airship flying in from a faraway Western country. It was the beginning of a dramatically different time when adults and the young together began sharing one new experience after another. The building of a new transportation system and the introduction of new communication devices like telephones and radios promised more convenient lives in the industrial age.   The German Blimp November 1929. Okamoto Kiichi Steel Bridge November 1931. Yasui Koyata   The Telephone January 1923. Okamoto Kiichi Building a Radio February 1928. Okamoto Kiichi Kurahashi Sozo inspired artists to draw children growing up free and happy in the family and then in places of broader experience at kindergarten and school. His images of grown-ups laboring in society also expressed one of his important themes. The artists took Kurahashi's challenge seriously. They vividly portrayed, and thus recorded for history, children pursuing various activities in diverse venues.   Playing "Rakansan" March 1923. Okamoto Kiichi The Fountain August 1927. Okamoto Kiichi   The Jungle Gym October 1930. Okamoto Kiichi Field Day October 1928. Kawakami Shiro   Pushing the Cart September 1923. Okamoto Kiichi Threshing Rice December 1927. Matsuyama Fumio     Storytelling February 1929. Okamoto Kiichi