Reading childhood picture books aloud is key to nurturing the minds of children. Through illustrations, one’s reading style, warmth of voice, and the atmosphere, children engage their senses more than adults imagine, absorbing the material and grasping meaning. Four minutes on foot from Hiyoshi-honcho station is Kodomo no Hon no Mise, Tomodachi (Children’s Bookstore, Friends), where you can pick up pointers on parenting and where rows of carefully selected books for reading aloud line the shelves. Its roots go back to 1964 in Hiyoshi when the couple Akira and Tokiko Tokumura founded the bookstore Nisshindou Shoten. There were few spaces for children at the time, so in 1971 they opened up the second floor for handicrafts and reading aloud. Called Himawari Bunko (“Sunflower Library”), it inspired the present iteration. In 1973, with the founders’ blessing, a new generation took the reins and thus Children’s Bookstore Friends began. Over the years, it has flirted with closure multiple times, but volunteer staff were determined to keep it open and have passed the baton to successive teams.
Three times a month on Monday mornings, it holds a reading event called Kuma’chan no Ohanashi-kai (Lil’ Bear’s Talk Session). A bear puppet hosts it and holds the children enthralled. It warms the heart to hear the kind, inviting voices of staff reading to the children, as if planting seeds in the fertile soil of their minds. It’s clear that the sessions nurture their imaginations. Staff Tomoko Oikawa and Takako Sugiura note, “Even if you have a picture book they don’t quite grasp yet, in this atmosphere of reading with expression, they sense that there’s something rewarding in all this. Any picture book will work. We want parents and children to experience finding a book they enjoy together. That leads to time spent in the most precious way.” Recently, there’s been an increase in fathers attending. The store also has other concepts like “Discovering books that excite you” and “Discovering people that put you at ease”. Oikawa and Sugiura add, “That moment when a straightforward activity that connects books and people and community slowly starts to come into fruition yields its own kind of happiness, too.” The Tomodachi bookstore’s own tale continues on…