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A review by studiomikarts
Tales of Japan: Traditional Stories of Monsters and Magic by Chronicle Books
adventurous
challenging
dark
hopeful
mysterious
sad
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? No
- Loveable characters? It's complicated
- Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
5.0
This is the second book in Chronicle Books' Tales series that I've read and it lived up to my expectations entirely! That's saying something, since the previous book set the bar very high! Just as with that other book, this one has beautiful illustrations that compliment the stories perfectly; lovely design work that makes the book a pleasure to hold and read; and the stories were wonderfully curated, an excellent selection ranging from heartwarming to spine-chilling to stomach-turning. I was really looking forward to the remarks at the end explaining where the stories were sourced, also. I was very pleased about my guess that Lafcadio Hearn was one of the included authors ☺️ I suppose the only thing I might change about this book would be to standardize the Romanization of the Japanese proper names. Because the stories were taken from late 19th, early 20th century authors, the Romanization was quite inconsistent. But they are also public domain authors, so there should have been no problem editing the names to follow modern standards 🤔 Even with that issue, however, this book is a must-read for anyone interested in Japan or in fairy tales and ghost stories from around the world!