Green Willow and Other Japanese Fairy Tales Hardcover – September 17, 2014

Beautiful book! Admittedly the artwork drew me in right away, but I really enjoyed the stories as well. Well worth buying!

If you read any Japanese stories, this has to be on your list.

This anthology contains thirty-eight stories complied by Grace James, and sixteen illustrations by Warwick Gable (though just to add to the debate, my paperback copy doesn't have them in colour).Although the term "fairy tale" is more of a Western concept, many of the familiar motifs we equate with that type of story pop up throughout this collection: threefold trials, beautiful princesses, wise old beggars, courageous youngest sons. It's fascinating to consider how universal some themes and patterns truly are.That said, you cannot mistake these stories as anything but Japanese in origin, filled as they are with samurai and daimyo, shrines and fox maidens, saké and rice. Some of the stories are better described as legends or myths, with stories of Japanese gods and creation myths that explain the genesis of various natural phenomena.According to the foreword, many of the tales were selected from the Ko-ji-ki, or "Records of Ancient Matters", a Japanese text dating from the early 8th century, while others were shared orally, or adapted from stage productions.When regarded as a whole, the stories are more melancholy than you would expect, containing a sense of "mono no aware" or "the pathos of things" – the Japanese concept of transient beauty forever fading, as found in lovers parted, time passing, and people dying.

This is a pretty great book, if you remember that it was written in 1910. The terms and romanized words are not modernized so it's not as authentic as other Japanese-lore books. I enjoyed reading this book for class as I had to do a presentation on it but I'd like to remind everyone that as of the mid-2000's this book has been converted and is available free at no cost in the internet archive. The colored plates are also included in the digital version in the archive.**The archive is a legal gathering of other texts that were converted to digital files to preserve and share the books.[...]

The previous reviewer must have had a different edition than the one I have on the table in front of me. ASIN/ISBN number is correct for this Amazon listing -- 0517632101. It is illustrated by Warwick Groble, there are 16 full color, very attractive plates. It might be a good idea to contact the bookseller you are thinking of buying from & inquiring as to whether their copy has color plates, but don't pass on this lovely book on account of no color illustrations -- It DOES have them and they are spectacular.

Don't buy this book, Om the front page they say there are color illustrations, but there are only very badly copied black and white illustrations in this book.

Spent 30yrs looking for the story of the girl on the bridge for my dad and he loved this book for christmas. Fantastic quality as good as the original