Minna no tameiki zukan

Tanoue Ranta, a fourth-grader who goes by the nickname “Tanochin,” is assigned a group project for school: make an original encyclopedia and present it on parents’ day. Tanochin’s group decides to make an encyclopedia of sighs, or “En-Sigh-Clopedia,” and its members start asking their classmates about where and why they sigh.

    Working with Tanochin are a boy named Kōshirō and three girls named Koyuki, Nanaho, and Yura. However, Yura spends all her time in the school nurse’s office. Tanochin asks Yura to draw the pictures for the encyclopedia, hoping to get her to come back to the classroom, but Koyuki insists that she will do the art instead. Torn between the two girls, Tanochin finds himself seeking advice from an unlikely source: “Little Sigh,” a drawing Yura makes of a little boy in a kimono. According to Yura, Little Sigh came out of Tanochin’s own sighs, but when Tanochin gets home that day, Little Sigh leaps out of his school bag and starts talking to him—the drawing has come to life.

    Little Sigh takes Tanochin to the “Sigh Festival,” a gathering packed with Sighs that Tanochin discovers are the “alter egos” of other children. He eventually finds the Sighs belonging to Koyuki and Yura and asks them what drove the two girls apart. Once he knows what happened, Tanochin is able to come up with an idea for helping his two classmates mend their friendship.

    The five children speak in lively Kansai dialect, making their endearingly innocent efforts to resolve the troubles that arise in their friendship a delight to read. The comical blend of the mundane and the fantastic adds to the fun, with the quirky Sighs seamlessly woven into the realistic school setting. The group’s “En-Sigh-Clopedia” is included as a bonus at the end of the book. (FY)