(JAPANESE Children’s Books) HERRING (Ann): The Dawn of Wisdom

Selections from the Japanese Collection of the Cotsen Children’s Library.[Los Angeles:] Cotsen Occasional Press [2000].Profusely Illustrated in color.4to., x 136 pp.; printed pictorial wrappers.

First edition of this important monograph on Japanese children’s books in the Cotsen Children’s Library from the late 17th century to the present focusing not only on books and magazines but also on printed games, puzzles, posters, broadsides, prints, panel-theater-sets, educational material for home and school use, and playing cards.

This selection of items gives a survey of the early production of books for children from the Heian Period (794-1185), Tokugawa (Edo) period (ca. 1615-1868), the Meiji Era (1868-1911), Taisho Democracy and its influence (1912-1932), the strong Nationalist sentiments from the 1930s and after, and the reconstruction period from 1945.