Bookstart and picture books for infants

Bookstart is a project run by cities, towns, and other municipalities, aimed at helping infants and their guardians connect with each other through picture books. Local libraries, health centers, childcare support departments, volunteers, and others work together to provide infants and their guardians with free of charge picture books during 0 year old infant health checkups and at other opportunities to provide them with the experience of opening a picture book and enjoying time together. This endeavor was launched in England in 1990, and spread to Japan on the occasion of the "National Year of Reading for Children" in 2000. The project began in earnest in 2001, and now at present is implemented by over 1,000 municipalities throughout Japan.

The picture books which are given out are selected by each municipality from among a collection of candidate works ("Bukku sutato akachan ehon [Bookstart infant picture books]") which are carefully curated by a screening committee consisting of librarians, childcare workers, experts in infant development and others. At the full-scale launch of Bookstart in Japan in 2001, 17 titles were selected as candidate works, with 30 titles now having been selected as of FY2020.

Some of the books selected as candidate works for the "Bukku sutato akachan ehon [Bookstart infant picture books]" are introduced in this exhibition.