Little Daruma and the Three Little Tenjins: A Japanese Children's Tale
One thing I strive to achieve as a parent is to teach my children many different values. One value I think is very important and one that we work on a lot is to help others whenever you can. In this Japanese children's tale little Daruma (Daruma are dolls to make wishes come true) has trouble getting the fish he caught for his family out of the lake due to its large size. With the kind help of 3 little tenjins (tenjins means "heavenly" and are helpers for humans) they all try to pull together to get the fish, although the line snaps and they lose the fish. Little Daruma wants to thank them for their hard work and so he decides to help out his new found friends as he goes on an adventure with the 3 little tenjins. As he helps out each tenjin in many different ways they thank him with a gift of food in return, so he doesn't have to go home empty handed after all. With a full tummy and 3 new friends, little Daruma is a lucky little "doll".
My children aged 5 and 2 enjoyed the story although some of the words and phrases they did not understand but I can't blame them because even I had no idea what they meant. I did however find a translator's note while going through the book one day and this helped a lot the second time I read the book to them.
