posted on 2025-06-30, 05:08authored byJane and Bill McCullam
Jane and Bill McCullam have an independent bookstore, Cattermole, specializing in children's literature. In 1990 Cattermole acquired a collection of Japanese picture books from the 1920s and 30s. Traditional Japanese paper is not at all acidic so these had the appearance of being almost new, apart from a bit of rust at the staples. The typography, vivid colors, and open layout predated anything similar in the West, and Jane and Bill were inspired to translate the accompanying text. Over the next two years they collected additional 20th century Japanese books and studied the language, culminating in their bilingual Catalog 17, November, 1992. Japanese letter forms are beautiful and complement the images so perfectly it is natural to accept the interrelatedness of picture and text which constitutes the art of children's books.
History
Journal
The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children's Literature
ISSN
1551-5680
Volume
10
Issue
2
Publisher
La Trobe University
Section Title
Alice's Academy
Author Biography
Jane and Bill McCullam have an independent bookstore, Cattermole, specializing in children's literature.
Date Created
2008-12-11
Rights Statement
Essays and articles published in The Looking Glass may be reproduced for non-profit use by any educational or public institution; letters to the editor and on-site comments made by our readers may not be used without the expressed permission of that individual. Any commercial use of this journal, in whole or in part, by any means, is prohibited. Authors of accepted articles assign to The Looking Glass the right to publish and distribute their text electronically and to archive and make it permanently available electronically. They retain the copyright and, 90 days after initial publication, may republish it in any form they wish as long as The Looking Glass is acknowledged as the original source.
Data source
OJS data migration 2025: https://ojs.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/103
