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    The Japanese Twins
    The Japanese Twins
    The Japanese Twins
    Ebook71 pages1 hour

    The Japanese Twins

    By Lucy Fitch Perkins

    4/5

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    About this ebook

    Lucy Fitch Perkins was forty-eight when she was approached by a publisher friend who, impressed by her talents as both an illustrator and writer, which he knew through correspondence, urged her to write. He was so earnest that she thought of an idea for a children’s book the next morning, and she immediately set to work making sketches and preparing the idea for presentation. The publisher came to dinner at their house the next evening and she showed him the idea. His response was immediate “go ahead and write it, and I want it”. That book was The Dutch Twins, the first in what became a long running and wildly popular series. Here we publish another in that series 'The Japanese Twins'.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherCopyright Group
    Release dateNov 19, 2013
    ISBN9781783946044
    The Japanese Twins

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    • 2/5
      This is a library discard book I've owned for about fifteen years and haven't read through until now. This hardcover, published in 1912, is part of a vast series of books by Perkins where she wrote about children from various cultures and time periods (Filipino Twins, Scotch Twins, Eskimo Twins, etc). By today's standards this would be regarded as a middle grade book, though the content could certainly be read to a younger child.The text is simple and the illustrations, by Perkins, are really quite cute. The content is very much in the context of the time period and the culture. Taro and Take live with their mother, father, granny and the new baby, Bot Chan. They are descended from samurai. Taro is the boy and is taught he has a great legacy to fulfill. His sister, Take, is told that she's just a girl and her goal in life is to marry, bear her husband's children, and eventually become a mother-in-law. Accurate for 1912? Absolutely. Made me cringe to read (and type just now)? Absolutely.That aside, the book does have its charms. It tells stories about the day the meet Bot Chan, their special journey to the temple for Bot Chan's one month celebration, and how girls and boys celebrate their birthdays all together on certain days of the year. It's not a bad book when it's regarded in the proper context of the time, but I certainly wouldn't read it to a younger child now, especially a girl.

    Book preview

    The Japanese Twins - Lucy Fitch Perkins

    The Japanese Twins by Lucy Fitch Perkins

    Lucy Fitch Perkins was forty-eight when she was approached by a publisher friend who, impressed by her talents as both an illustrator and writer, which he knew through correspondence, urged her to write. He was so earnest that she thought of an idea for a children’s book the next morning, and she immediately set to work making sketches and preparing the idea for presentation. The publisher came to dinner at their house the next evening and she showed him the idea.  His response was immediate go ahead and write it, and I want it. That book was The Dutch Twins, the first in what became a long running and wildly popular series.  Here we publish another in that series 'The Japanese Twins'.

    Index Of Contents

    Introduction - The Japanese Twins And Bot'chan.

    Chapter I. The Day The Baby Came.

    Chapter II. Morning In The Little House.

    Chapter III. How They Went To The Temple.

    Chapter IV. A Rainy Day

    Chapter V. Take's Birthday.

    Chapter VI. Going To School.

    Chapter VII. Taro’s Birthday.

    Lucy Fitch Perkins – A Short Biography

    INTRODUCTION - THE JAPANESE TWINS AND BOT'CHAN

    Away, away, ever so far away, near the western shores of the Ocean of Peace, lie the Happy Islands, the Paradise of Children.

    Some people call this ocean the Pacific and they call the Happy Islands Japan, but the meaning is just the same. Those are only their grown-up names, that you find them by on the map, in the geography.

    They are truly Happy Islands, for the sun shines there so brightly that all the people go about with pleasant, smiling faces, and the children play out of doors the whole year through without ever quarreling. And they are never, never spanked! Of course, the reason for that is that they are so good they never, never need it! Or maybe their fathers and mothers do not believe in spanking.

    I have even been told, though I don't know whether to think it's true or not, that Japanese parents believe more in sugar-plums than in punishments to make children good!

    Anyway, the children there are very good indeed.

    In a little town near a large city on one of the Happy Islands, there is a garden. In the garden stands a house, and in that House there live Taro, who is a boy, and Take (Pronounce Tah'-kay), who is a girl.

    They are twins. They are Japanese Twins and they are just five years old, both of them.

    Of course, Taro and Take do not live alone in the house in the garden. Their Father and Mother live there too, and their Grandmother, who is very old, and the Baby, who is very young.

    Taro and Take cannot remember when Grandmother and Father and Mother happened, because they were all there when the Twins came; and the Twins could not possibly imagine the world without Father and Mother and Grandmother.

    But with the Baby it was different. One day there wasn't any Baby at all, and the next day after that, there he was, looking very new but quite at home already in the little house in the garden, where Taro and Take lived.

    Taro means eldest son, and the Baby might have been called Jiro, because Jiro means second, and he was the second boy in the family; but from the day he came they called him just Bot'Chan. That is what they call boy babies in Japan.

    Take means bamboo, and the Twins' Father and Mother named their little daughter Take because they hoped she would grow up to be tall and slender and strong and graceful like the bamboo tree.

    Now, can you think of anything nicer in this world than being Twins, and living with a Mother and Father and Grandmother and a Baby Brother, in a dear little house, in a dear little garden, in a dear little, queer little town in the middle of the Happy Islands that lie in the Ocean of Peace?

    Taro and Take thought it was the nicest thing that could possibly have happened; though, as they hadn't ever lived anywhere else, or been anybody but themselves for a single minute, I don't see how they could be quite so sure about it.

    This book is all about Taro and Take and the Baby, and what a nice time they had living. And if you want to know some of the things that happened on the very first day that the Twins and Bot'Chan ever saw each other you can turn over to the next page and read about the day the Baby came. That tells all about it, just exactly as it was.

    CHAPTER I - THE DAY THE BABY CAME

    Taro and Take were standing right beside their Father early one morning when the nurse came into the room with a bundle in her arms.

    It was a queer-looking, knobby kind of a bundle, and there was something in it that squirmed!

    The nurse looked so happy and smiling that the twins knew at once there must be something very nice in the bundle, but what it was they could not guess. Taro thought, Maybe it's a puppy. He had wanted a puppy for a long time. And Take thought, Perhaps it's a kitten! But it looks pretty large for a kitten, and it doesn't mew. Kittens always mew. And they both thought, Anyway, it's alive.

    The nurse carried the bundle across the room. She knelt down on the floor before the Twins' Father and laid it at his feet.

    The Twins' Father looked very much surprised, and as for Taro and Take, they felt just exactly the way you feel when you look at your stocking on Christmas morning.

    They dropped down on their knees beside the bundle, one on each side of their Father. They wanted dreadfully to open it. They wanted so dreadfully to open it that they had to hold their hands hard to keep from touching it, but they never even

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