Bunko mothers
The devastation in Japan has made me think about a marvellous Japanese woman who came into my life some years ago when I was editing a booklet about Eileen Colwell, the pioneer English storyteller and children’s librarian. During several visits in the course of her long career, Eileen had made an enormous impact on children’s librarians in Japan. and Kyoko Matsuoka, the enterprising founder of Tokyo Children’s Library, the first children’s library in Japan, had become a great admirer and friend. She would go to Loughborough to visit Eileen whenever she was in the UK; she was one of the people who told a story at the memorable 90th birthday celebration for Eileen which was organised by the Society for Storytelling; and she readily agreed to write a contributory piece when the Society decided to publish a special festschrift booklet to honour Eileen’s life and work.
One thing that most fascinated me about Kyoko was what she told me about the bunko movement in Japan. A system of informal house libraries for children, it was originally modelled on an idea that had come from the States and it came into its own in the devastation following the Second World War. Anyone who had suitable books at home could volunteer to open their home on a regular basis for children to come there to read and borrow them. The movement flourished. Most of the volunteers were women and many of the bunko mothers, as they were called, also proved themselves to be storytellers too, orally telling stories to the children who came along.
The last time I met with Kyoko she told me she was about to start a new project to write about the bunko movement. She was planning to take three years to do it and in that time, would be visiting bunko mothers all over Japan. Many of them were already very elderly, some had been involved since the movement began and Kyoko wanted to collect their memories. I can’t help thinking about them now as I see the pictures of utterly devastated homes and towns and hear how the elderly people have especially suffered.