2021 Volume 62 Issue 3-4 Pages 119-131
This study describes how the children’s literature critic Shin Torigoe gave meaning to mothers’ evaluations of the picture book The Story of Little Black Sambo by analyzing the documents of a bunko (a local children’s book service where mothers could gather with one another to discover and discuss children’s literature) on the text available in the 1960s. Although The Story of Little Black Sambo was self-censored and went out of print around 1990 because of its racial overtones, the book had been popular in Japan through the 1960s. For this reason, a study of The Story of Little Black Sambo from the 1960s illustrates how picture books were evaluated in post-war Japan.
Torigoe recognized The Story of Little Black Sambo before he became involved in his local bunko in the mid-1960s. He educated mothers through the bunko’s activities so that they could appreciate the value of the story, and he helped them to build confidence in their discerning eye for picture books. Nevertheless, he described it as somewhat of a coincidence that the mothers evaluated The Story of Little Black Sambo the same way that he had. This suggests the power imbalance between the critic, as an educator, and mothers, as students, in the evaluation of picture books.
