Language in your pocket

LIVINGJSTYLETRENDS

Generations of children would be grateful for three things that happened to Junko Morimoto at around the time she turned 50.

First, she migrated to Australia with her only son leaving behind a teaching career and a failed marriage.
Second, Morimoto took up her sister's suggestion of creating picture books of Japanese folk stories, helping her to adjust to life in a new country. Third, her son took that work to publishers Collins Australia and without so much as a referral, knocked on the door.

The White Crane was published in 1983 and commended by the Children's Book Council of Australia in the following year. More than a dozen picture books have followed including My Hiroshima, Morimoto's account of surviving the atomic bomb dropped on her hometown in 1945.
"Since The White Crane, picture books became my life," Morimoto says. "Although artworks get packed away after an exhibition, picture books remain and continue to be read by children over the years. There is nothing quite as delightful as that."

Morimoto says she is grateful for the acceptance and love she has encountered in Australia.

"People have accepted me with little preconception of my work and style while the readers have been so warm," she says. "It is out of this generosity that I have been awarded six times for my picture books to this day."

However, when Morimoto took the My Hiroshima concept to her publisher, there was some hesitation. It took the chief editor to argue the case for publishing against a significant "no" camp in the company.
My Hiroshima, published in 1997, has become a prescribed textbook at her old school.

"To depict the country that was responsible for many Australian casualties of World War II in such a way must have been met with considerable opposition," she says. "I cannot express my feeling of gratitude to have My Hiroshima published in this way."

"As long as my health allows me to, I hope to keep sharing my experience of the atom bomb with people and highlight the importance of peace to the coming generations," she says. "That's the least I can give back to the country that has done so much for me."