Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories

Ayrton, Matilda Chaplin, 1846-1883Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

Rating 3.3
Word count
112K words
Chapters
12

Tags

English Originals CultureChildren's Literature Heartwarming NarrativeExotic CultureCultural ObservationJapanese ChildhoodFolk CustomsParent-Child Reading

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories by Matilda Chaplin AyrtonAuthor: Ayrton, Matilda Chaplin, 1846-1883,Language: English, Class: DS: History: General and Eastern Hemisphere: Asia, Release Date: May 28, 2009

Editor's review

This book is nineteenth-century British author Matilda Chaplin Ayrton's record of Japanese children's life and folk tales, a text that blends cross-cultural observation with children's stories. Its value lies in preserving, through a foreigner's eyes of the time, fragments of everyday Japanese child-rearing customs, seasonal games, and oral tales, offering useful reference for understanding modern Japanese social life and the encounter between Eastern and Western cultures. The prose is plain and the stories short, making it suitable as supplementary material for cultural history and children's literature research, and for general readers interested in Japanese folklore to dip into at leisure. It is best read as a period slice rather than authoritative ethnography, with attention to the selectivity imposed by the observer's standpoint. This is an English public-domain e-book of modest length, readable in installments, and best understood alongside notes or background materials.

Who it's for

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Reading tips

  1. Read the table of contents first to grasp the structure, then choose stories or custom passages according to interest
  2. Note the observer's standpoint and period limitations as you read, forming critical notes
  3. Read alongside contemporary Japanese children's books to compare narrative differences
  4. Use as English extensive reading material, one or two pieces at a time, with background notes

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

Contents

  1. 1
  2. 2
  3. 3
  4. 4
  5. 5
  6. 6
  7. 7
  8. 8
  9. 9
  10. 10
  11. 11
  12. 12

FAQ

Is this book originally written in Japanese or in English? This book was written in English; the author records in English her observations in Japan and the children's stories she collected, published by Project Gutenberg as a public-domain e-book. Readers can read the English original directly, or use translations or notes for support; the content reflects Japan as seen through nineteenth-century foreign eyes.
Is it suitable as a storybook for children? Some children's stories can be told to children, but the book also contains extensive custom observations and period background descriptions, and its narrative style is old-fashioned, not necessarily matching contemporary children's reading habits. Parents or teachers are advised to select story passages and adapt them appropriately before sharing with children.
What background knowledge is needed to read this book? Some understanding of nineteenth-century Japanese society and the Western tradition of observing Japan around the Meiji era will help in understanding the content. Readers who have some familiarity with Japanese seasonal customs, child-rearing practices, and folk tales will find the reading experience smoother.

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About the author

Ayrton, Matilda Chaplin, 1846-1883 Author · British · 1846–1883

Matilda Chaplin Ayrton (1846–1883) was a British woman doctor and one of the earliest women to study medicine in Britain. She travelled to Japan, where she studied and taught midwifery, and this experience abroad gave her a distinctive perspective for her later writing. Her only surviving work, Child-Life in Japan and Japanese Child Stories, records the daily life and folk tales of Japanese children in delicate prose that combines an observer's documentary eye with a storyteller's warmth, offering nineteenth-century British readers a window into Japanese children's culture. Public information on her education, professional career and the reception of her work is limited and awaits further verification.