Children's Book Review: Japanese Folktales for Children by Ty Hulse

Ty Hulse, author of Japanese Folktales for Children, and blogger on World Rise Stories Are Beautiful, approached me via my blog about reviewing his book.  I agreed wholeheartedly as long as he was aware that I would give an honest review...not just a super sweet one because he gave me a free book (which I will be returning to him).

I received the book and went over it carefully.  It is 37 pages in length which includes a very brief dictionary of unfamiliar terms used in some of the stories.  It is designed in the form of a children's picture book and the illustrations are simple, muted and a combination of the look of sketch and watercolor.  They give the feel of Japanimation, or even more, they reminded me of Jim Hensen's characters in The Dark Crystal.   Here, I'll show you an example of what I mean:

Similar?

But I digress, which I do a lot.

This is the average page layout in the book.  What I was first struck by was that it was a lot of text vs the number of illustrations which would make this more suited to older than younger children.  Younger children need few words and many pictures.

I am a little confused as to the actual target audience for the sale of this book.  It appears from my reading of it, to be better suited for adults and as a historical preservation of the cultural heritage of folk tales.  However, it appears to be being marketed as a children's book.  In no way do I mean to be disrespectful when I say that I think most kids would be bored with the stories, or maybe just what I know of American children.  I'm no expert though, so those are just my initial impressions.

I found the stories to be interesting from a cultural perspective, and a bit boring from a story enjoyment perspective, if that makes any sense.  Another reviewer felt otherwise, so I want to be sure to present that contrast.  Maranda Russell gave it a positive review.

I must also say, in all honesty, that the book I reviewed, in my opinion, is not nearly ready for publication or sale due to prolific editing issues.  I will write to Ty privately with more detail about that.  I'm no expert on writing errors as you can tell from all the mistakes in MY posts.

On a positive note, I applaud Ty for his passion about these stories, for his dedication in preserving and sharing these stories.  He believes in his own project enough to have gone to the expense of self publishing and marketing.  I can feel his heart in his reaching out to share these stories and for asking me to review this book.  I think with careful editing, and perhaps even with a new title that would market less to children and more to adults ("A Literary Treasure of Japanese Folktales" or some such), this would have appeal to a narrow market.  A narrow, but important market.  A market of readers interested in the cultural storytelling traditions and the preservation of stories of old.