BookDragon Books for the Diverse Reader

Chibi: A True Story from Japan by Barbara Brenner and Julia Takaya, illustrated by June Otani [in What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature]

ChibiA lone duck flies into downtown Tokyo and hatches 10 ducklings. People flock to Mitsui Office Park to watch the ducks’ progress, including Mr. Sato, a newspaper photographer who names the tiniest of the ducks, Chibi. Okasan (Japanese for “mother”) transfers her brood across an eight-lane highway to the Emperor’s Gardens where they survive a typhoon and make a new life.

Based on a true story, thousands of Tokyo-ites followed the adventures of the lone mother duck determined to raise her brood in the middle of one of the world’s busiest cities. So obsessed was the public with Okasan and Chibi that the evening news broadcast a daily “Duck Watch.”

Review: “Asian American Titles,” What Do I Read Next? Multicultural Literature, Gale Research, 1997

Readers: Children

Published: 1996

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