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rachelhelps 's review for:
Totto-chan: The Little Girl at the Window
by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, Chihiro Iwasaki
I picked this book up on a whim from the BYU bookstore, and it was really cute! I read it one afternoon when I was feeling sick. In many short episodes, Totto-chan tells of her memories of an experimental school in Japan. They go camping, learn gardening from a farmer, sing songs about food, and all sorts of other charming things. The writing is easy enough for children to read (aside from some Japanese names), but still enjoyable for adults, and in fact some of the chapters are or were part of the curriculum for schoolchildren in Japan. The only thing I didn't like about the book was that it was not the "quiet indictment" of regular schools as one dust-jacket quote claimed, but a noisy one. I mostly agree with her complaints, but it seemed a little passive-aggressive at times.