Japanese-American relations have been the object of considerable study from the 1850s, when Commodore Matthew Perry used gunboat diplomacy to break the seclusion of an island nation. Japan and American Children’s Books: A Journey explores this relationship from a unique perspective, examining representations of Japan’s history and culture in American children’s literature from the early nineteenth century to the beginning of the twenty-first.
Sybille A. Jagusch traces depictions of Japan from their first appearances in early European children’s books to their emergence in the pages of those published in the United States. A carefully curated collection of text excerpts and images reveals evolving American perceptions of Japan and Japanese people over the course of more than two centuries. Drawn from rare and often long-forgotten children’s books in the collections of the Library of Congress, the early excerpts express assumptions and stereotypes held by western writers and illustrators whose work was meant to share insight into the cultures and practices of a people about whom they knew little. They include passages from the illustrated journal of a boy who accompanied Commodore Perry on his first voyage to Japan; selections from romanticized late nineteenth-century travelogues-some penned by writers who had never visited Japan; and excerpts from stories featured in St. Nicholas, the influential American children’s magazine that was published from the early 1870s to the 1940s.
Later samples reveal the waxing and waning relationship between the two countries amid the evolution of the children’s publishing genre, which met the complexities and strains of a rapidly changing world with increasingly sophisticated and stylized accounts that laid bare the grim realities of war, racism, and annihilation: the bombing of Pearl Harbor, the nuclear holocaust of Hiroshima, and the internment of Japanese Americans during World War II. The book’s final chapters highlight the unique contributions of Japanese American authors and illustrators in recounting their personal experiences and those of their families.
A journey through the fits and starts of cultural awakening, this carefully curated sampler underscores the challenges of trying to understand and portray people from another culture. It also showcases the talent of more than a century of children’s book writers and illustrators, many of whose work has languished without recognition until now.
