This is a story by Sasaki Mie about first-year student Ichirō visiting his grandma on Himeshima. On Himeshima they celebrate the festival of Obon with a traditional ‘fox dance’. Ichirō decides on taking part in the tradition and receives help from a boy named Rin.
I really liked about this book, that I didn’t just learn about the traditional fox dance, but that it also included an entire story with chapters and plot. There are 7 chapters, each being 2-3 pages long with pictures to accompany the plot (by Pham Hai Anh).
Himeshima is an island in Ōita prefecture on Kyūshu and this story was developed for NPO Tagengo Tadoku by the 「大分発わくわく読みものをつくる会」(Ōita Association for the Creation of Exciting Reading Materials). There are more stories featuring Ōita locations and traditions over at https://tadoku.org/japanese/free-books/
The story about Ichirō and the fox dance can be read for free here: https://tadoku.org/japanese/book/3146/#bd-look-inside
Length: 23 pages
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