Summary
This short story is about a young Japanese girl who moves into her new house. She is happy to see a girl her age playing in the snow just outside her window. The only problem is the Japanese girl doesn’t speak English and the American girl doesn’t speak Japanese.How will these two girls have any fun at all? As it turns out, it’s not that hard when both girls are looking for a friend! What starts with a simple “hello” and “konnichiwa” becomes a day filled with fun in the snow.
Theme(s):
Friendship, Teamwork, Care
Personal Response
I found this book to be both educational and heart warming. This is an important book to show children that speaking the same language isn’t a prerequisite to making a new friend. There similarities overcome the barrier of speaking two different languages. This story also teaches children some Japanese if they don’t know it already.
Teaching Ideas
A fun and engaging idea to help implement this story further would be to allow children to use google translate or translate (if they have an iPad) and create a short response using two different languages. This will reflect the story and also teach children new languages and maybe some different ways to say hello (hola, bonjour, konnichiwa, and many more!).
Recommended Reading Level
Birth-PreK, Grade 01, Grade 02, Grade 03
