Shimohata's first collection of stories for children, and the representative
work of this author who died in 1944 at the age of 28 contains eleven stories.
They deal with the daily life of children, including "Renga no Entotsu,"
which received the Japan Prize for New Writers for Children in 1940, and
"Shûgaku-Ryokô" ["A School Trip"], which
was ranked second for the same prize in 1939. This volume, published with
the help of Tutsumi Seika, shows how the young writers at that time received
the idea of collectivism, and tried to describe the children and different
characters living together.
The title piece, "Renga no Entotsu," is as follows: one day, a country boy comes to an elementary school in a town. As he knows little about the town, and he is very calm in class, his classmates think little of him. One day, he is calmer than as usual, which is because his father has been killed in battle after saving many fellow soldiers. After school, his classmates visit his house to show their sympathy, but he is not at home. He is out delivering newspapers in the town where chimneys of bricks cast shadows.
Along with Seki Hideo's Hokkoku no Inu [A Dog in the Northern Land] and Niimi Nankichi's Ojisan no Rampu [Grandfather's Lamp], this book belongs to Sinjin Dôwa-shû [A Series of New Writers]. |
