Format:
Book
Title:
My boy : a father's memories / Makoto Shiina ; translated by Frederik L. Schodt.
Author:
Shiina, Makoto, 1944-
Call Number:
895.6 Shiina
Publisher, Date:
Tokyo : New York : Kodansha Internatioal, 1992.
Description:
166 p. ; 22 cm.
Summary:
"Gaku is an unusual name for a boy in Japan, but Gaku was an unusual boy. His father kept his head shaved until he was a teenager because he thought the price of a haircut was too high. (When his classmates called him Baldy, he'd smack them.) In a land where most kids spent each waking hour studying or practicing for exams, Gaku spent his time roughhousing around the neighborhood, practicing wrestling holds with his father, or collecting caterpillars. When he read a book, it was usually about fishing techniques or camping expeditions. He fought in the playground, brought home terrible report cards, and constantly got into mischief. But rather than worry about his son's future in Japan's work-oriented society. Gaku's father, the popular Japanese adventurer and writer Makoto Shiina, thought it was more important for his son to enjoy his childhood than to observe the rules of propriety. In fact, Shiina so enjoyed watching Gaku grow up in his rather unruly, joyous fashion that he began to record some of Gaku's more memorable exploits. In these warm, wholly delightful accounts, Gaku comes to resemble a kind of Japanese Dennis the Menace verging on Tom Sawyer, the kind of free spirit a child can be when unconstrained by convention. Gaku's adventures become an echo of the author's own love of wild places, from Siberia to the South Pacific, where in his own way he finds freedom that he recaptures in Japan only when standing on a windswept beach with his son, casting their lines into the waves."--BOOK JACKET.
Subjects:
Shiina, Makoto, 1944-
Shiina, Gaku.
Father and child -- Anecdotes.
Children -- Anecdotes.
Other Title:
Gaku monogatari. English
ISBN:
477001693X