Japan and American Children's Books : : A Journey / / Sybille Jagusch.

• Superior document: Title is part of eBook package: De Gruyter Rutgers University Press Complete eBook-Package 2021
• VerfasserIn: Jagusch, Sybille,
• MitwirkendeR: Hayden, Carla D,; Hayden, Carla D.,; Rimer, J. Thomas,
• Place / Publishing House: New Brunswick, NJ : : Rutgers University Press, , [2021]; ©2021
• Year of Publication: 2021
• Language: English
• Physical Description: 1 online resource (350 p.) :; 194 color illustrations

For generations, children’s books provided American readers with their first impressions of Japan. Seemingly authoritative, and full of fascinating details about daily life in a distant land, these publications often presented a mixture of facts, stereotypes, and complete fabrications. This volume takes readers on a journey through nearly 200 years of American children’s books depicting Japanese culture, starting with the illustrated journal of a boy who accompanied Commodore Matthew Perry on his historic voyage in the 1850s. Along the way, it traces the important role that representations of Japan played in the evolution of children’s literature, including the early works of Edward Stratemeyer, who went on to create such iconic characters as Nancy Drew. It also considers how American children’s books about Japan have gradually become more realistic with more Japanese-American authors entering the field, and with texts grappling with such serious subjects as internment camps and the bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Drawing from the Library of Congress’s massive collection, Sybille A. Jagusch presents long passages from many different types of Japanese-themed children’s books and periodicals—including travelogues, histories, rare picture books, folktale collections, and boys’ adventure stories—to give readers a fascinating look at these striking texts. Published by Rutgers University Press, in association with the Library of Congress.

Table of Contents

Frontmatter -- Contents -- Foreword -- Introduction -- Note to the Reader -- Prologue: Japan in Early Books for Children: From Comenius to Commodore Perry -- Part I From Early Children’s Books to the End of the Nineteenth Century -- 1 They Went to Japan: The Post-Perry Travelers and Their Stories for the Young -- 2 Fact and Fiction: Travelogues and Adventure Tales about Japan to the Turn of the Twentieth Century -- 3 Takejiro Hasegawa: The Foreigners’ Publisher -- 4 Japan in St. Nicholas Magazine -- 5 The Children’s Book Writers and Their Information Sources: From Marco Polo to Madame Chrysanthème -- Part II The Twentieth Century -- 6 Globetrotting in Children’s Books: From 1900 to World War II -- 7 Louise Seaman Bechtel: America’s First Children’s Book Editor and Her Books about Japan -- 8 The Post–World War II Years -- 9 Three Japanese American Journeys -- 10 Into the Twenty-First Century -- Appendix: The Gatekeepers: Leading American Children’s Librarians and Their Influence on Children’s Books about Japan -- Acknowledgments -- Notes -- Selected Bibliography and Further Reading -- Illustration and Text Excerpt Credits -- Index -- About the Author