Tuttle Publishing | Page 2 of 2

Moon Messenger, early elementary Mid-Autumn Festival poetry primer

Because I teach ESL to Chinese students the mid-Autumn Festival has been in our vocabulary for many years. Moon Messenger is an illustrated book by Wei Jie, with art by Xia Xinxin that tells the story of what most of my students say is their second favorite festival. Essentially, the Mid-Autumn Festival family and is centered on the full moon at the time. There is also a large component of the holiday where you eat moon cakes. Moon cakes are kind of like mochi, which is a bean paste that some people love and others can tolerate it if it has some fruit on it. Chinese snacks aside, the book is about one child’s desire to see his father, who’s on a business trip and how the full moon plays a part in it.

Moon messenger, a primer on mid-autumn festival for ages 4 and up

Haunted Japan, accessible, bite-sized yokai and dread

Ah, ghost watch, I get it now. Sadly, that’s one of the first things I thought about when I started reading Haunted Japan: Exploring the World of Japanese Yokai, Ghosts and the Paranormal. I love Japan and I love reading about ghosts. Personally, I lived in Japan for two years and it’s one of the friendliest, cleanest places you’ll ever visit. It’s also very weird. Even the foreword of the books lets readers know that this is a strange place. Haunted Japan was originally released 25 years ago, but author Catrien Ross has updated some of the stories and included more modern tales.

Haunted Japan by Catrien Ross works as a re-telling of ancient ghosts, modern hauntings the paranormal and travelogue.

Haunted Japan is a serious and educational look at nippon yokai

The Complete Story of Sadako Sasaki review

The paper crane is ubiquitous with Hiroshima, Japan and the Atomic bomb. You don’t have to have visited Hiroshima to be aware of the relationship between the deceivingly complex origami crane, that location and its history. To some extent it’s as associated with the bomb as the dome shaped building that’s still in Hiroshima. However, the cranes have a story behind them and a teenage-girl who was the victim of the detonation. The Complete Story of Sadako Sasaki and the Thousand Paper Cranes is the soft-cover version of the book that tells her story.

For middle school readers who are learning more about WWII, this is great