Product Description: “Charming and captivating, these authentic and little-knownJapanese folktales are told clearly and simply, making them easilyaccessible to young listeners at home or in the classroom.Thoughtful comments and notes from the two tellers provide cleartips for successful telling, along with a very useful glossary...read more

Product Description: This book tells the story of the Unhappy Stonecutter, a traditional Japanese folk tale. In it, a simple stonecutter learns that you should count your blessings and be grateful for what you already have, instead of always wanting more!

Product Description: This colorfully illustrated multicultural children's book presents Japanese fairy tales and other folk stories—providing insight into a rich literary culture.In sixteen entertaining stories, you'll meet a delicate princess, a flying farmer, and a dragon along with many other characters who will thrill, charm, and delight your children...read more

The Nihon ryoiki, a collection of setsuwa, or "anecdotal" tales, compiled by a monk in late-eighth- or early-ninth-century Japan, records the spread of Buddhist ideas in Japan and the ways in which Buddhism's principles were adapted to the conditions of Japanese society. Beginning in the time before Buddhism was introduced to Japan, the text captures the effects of the nation's initial contact with Buddhism―brought by emissaries from the king of the Korean state of Paekche―and the subsequent adoption and dissemination of these new teachings in Japanese towns and cities.The Nihon ryoiki provides a crucial window into the ways in which Japanese Buddhists began to make sense of the teachings and texts of their religion, incorporate religious observances and materials from Korea and China, and articulate a popularized form of Buddhist practice and belief that could extend beyond monastic centers. The setsuwa genre would become one of the major textual projects of classical and medieval Buddhism, with nearly two dozen collections appearing over the next five centuries. The Nihon ryoiki serves as a vital reference for these later works, with the tales it contains finding their way into folkloric traditions and becoming a major source for Japanese authors well into the modern period.

Product Description: Ancient Tales in Modern Japan makes available for the first time in English a unique collection of Japanese folk tales. More than half of these tales have never before been translated. Fanny Hagin Mayer, a pioneer Western scholar in the field of Japanese folklore, has selected 347 folk tales from the standard Japanese reference work, the Meii...read more