“This delightful compendium of short, savory, and highly tellable tales embodies the beliefs and folkways of rural Japan—specifically the area most impacted by the recent tsunami and nuclear disaster. It adds immeasurably to our insight into that endangered world.”

—Joseph Sobol, Ph.D., director, ETSU Storytelling Graduate Program

Hiroko Fujita is a traditional ohanashi obaasan (storytelling grandma). She spent her childhood in the rural mountain town of Miharu in Fukushima Prefecture, where she heard hundreds of ancient folktales from village elders. A graduate of Japan Women's University who was an early childhood education for five decades, she now travels Japan, teaching young mothers the old tales. The author of thirty-one books in Japanese, she lives in Kashiwa, Chiba Prefecture, Japan.

Fran Stallings, a professional storyteller based in Bartlesville, Oklahoma, interpreted for Mrs. Fujita's twelve storytelling tours of twenty-two American states, Japan and Singapore. Stallings edited and adapted English translations of Mrs. Fujita's storytelling handbook Stories to Play With (August House, 1999) and a collection of forty-seven tales known throughout Japan, Folktales from the Japanese Countryside (Libraries Unlimited, 2008). Stallings' other publications include articles, stories, songs, and four CDs. Her academic training in biology informs her environmental work as “EarthTeller.”

In 2003, Fujita and Stallings received the National (U.S.) Storytelling Network's International StoryBridge ORACLE Award for their work on both sides of the Pacific. They hope that these books will make Mrs. Fujita's stories available to English-speaking story lovers everywhere.

Translator Makiko Ishibashi attended the University of Tokyo. She lived in St. Louis while her husband did postdoctoral work and their two sons attended American schools. Now their sons are grown, and she lives in Saitama, Japan, with her husband. Her current interest is in the ukiyoe (woodblock prints) of Hiroshige, and Edo (the old name for Tokyo). She blogs bilingually at “A Hundred Views Of Edo”