青い鳥

by Kiyoshi Shigematsu, 重松 清

Collection of stories about junior high school students in Japan.

325 pages, Tankobon Hardcover

First published July 1, 2007

About the author

重松 清, Shigematsu Kiyoshi
Shigematsu Kiyoshi is a contemporary Japanese writer. He is one of the best-selling authors in Japan, and the major theme of his novels is about family. His most notable works include Naifu (ナイフ) (1997), Eiji (エイジ) (1999) and Bitamin F (ビタミンF) (2000).
Shigematsu’s works in other genre including journals, editorials and critics are highly commended. He also worked in novelising screenplays.

Reviews

[Noori Dyo]

Read it in Russian translation.
Loved the book. It’s not like everything is magically resolved, but every hero is taking a step to a new beginning, to make things better, to fix their problems…
It also teaches you not to judge people, and every hero of every character has their own weaknesses and flaws, but the important things is they understand it and try to work on them…

I always say I judge people, but I don’t. I just question people’s misused weapons, unused opportunities and missed chances, but never the people themselves and not in a judgy way. And this book made me realize I surely do not judge.

In the book our heroes are lucky to meet such a teacher, who specifically works on being a helpful teacher to special students like them. However I think every person has someone in their life who , unknowingly for themselves and for people too, help them with realizing what is the meaning of their life, to open their eyes to their flaws and how to deal with them. I hope everyone has such a person

[Cbsmbr · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was lucky enough to work on book design of this great title for publishing house in Russian edition and am really glad I was able to. The book has deeply touched me.

The input theme of a book is a forced lonelyness: the book consists of short stories reflecting life of young people excluded from society for various reasons. All of those parts are connected together with a figure of a teacher that helps ones to fit in again. It is a great example of literature that enlightens slices of life that are difficult to be spoken about not only because of being painful but mostly for being subtle and elusive. The deadly unspokenness is a second opening key for me about this book. It brings up a topic of broken communication in a direct way through an image of teacher having a speaking disorder and in a second way enlightening rough holes in human social chain to become that link that cures the reader eventually.

[Masa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Beautifully illustrates the students who are not able to fit in at Japanese middle / high schools. It also shows Japan's collectivist culture, especially in education.

[Ayumi Takimoto · Rating 3 out of 5]

短編小説は好きじゃない。でもたまに間違って買ってしまう。この本もそんな一つ。チョットがっかりしながら読み進めて行ったが最後が良かった。短編だけど一人の先生が色々な学校で生徒を救っていくお話を集めたもの。途中飽きかけるけど最後まで読まないと得られない満足感があった。