The Novel Review: TOTTO-CHAN - The Little Girl at the Window

When I was in junior high school, my teacher lent me this Novel. She said it's very interesting novel. After I red this novel, I just knew why it was “interesting”. The school which is in the story was similar to my school, Qaryah Thayyibah. And the Head Master, Mr. Kobayashi was like my head Master. Both of them gave freedom to their students to express the ideas, to learn what they wanna learn.

A. About the Novel, the Author, and the translator 

About The Novel

This novel tells about an ideal school in Tokyo during World War II that combined learning with fun, freedom, and love. This unusual school had old railroad cars for classrooms, and it was run by an extraordinary man--its founder and headmaster, Sosaku Kobayashi --who was a firm believer in freedom of expression and activity. In real life, the Totto-chan of the book has become one of Japan's most popular

television personalities - Tetsuko Kuroyanagi. She attributes her success in life to this wonderful school and its headmaster. The charm of this account has won the hearts of millions of people of all ages and made this book a runaway best seller in Japan, with sales hitting the 4.5 million mark in its first year.

THE TRANSLATOR

Dorothy Britton poet, writer, and composer--was born in Japan and educated in the U.S. and England. A pupil of Darius Milhaud, she is well known for her popular Capitol Records album Japanese Sketches in which Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's father is violin soloist. She is the author of the English libretto of the Japanese opera Yuzuru and of A Haiku Journey, a distinguished translation of the poet Basho's Narrow Road to a Far Province.

THE AUTHOR

Tokyo-born Tetsuko Kuroyanagi, voted Japan's most popular TV personality for five years running, studied opera singing at Tokyo College of Music but became an actress, soon winning a prestigious award for her radio and TV work. She spent 1972 in New York, studying acting and writing From New York with Love. Since 1975 she has hosted “Tetsuko's Room,” Japan's first daily TV talk show, recently awarded the highest TV prize. This and her other regular TV shows all have top viewer ratings. Devoted to welfare, she twice brought America's National Theater of the Deaf to Japan, acting with them in sign language. The Totto-chan Foundation, financed by her book royalties, professionally trains deaf actors--with whom she often appears. Author of Panda and I, she is also a conservationist with a long-time interest in the Giant Panda, and is a director of the World Wildlife Fund Japan.

B. Synopsis

Totto Chan and Mama were on the way to Totto chan’s new School. Totto Chan was an active little girl who had many curiosities’ on her head. When she saw ticket collectors in the railroad station, she wanted to be like them one day. Totto-chan walked along holding Mother's hand, she remembered that until the day before she had been quite sure she wanted to be a spy. But she thought what fun it would be to be in charge of a box full of tickets. Totto Chan kept chattering along the way, while her mother worried what if they wouldn't have Tottochan at the new school. Totto-chan didn't know Mother was worried, so when their eyes met, she said gaily, “I've changed my mind. I think I'll join one of those little bands of street musicians who go about advertising new stores!”.

The Little Girl at the Window

The reason Mother was worried was because although Totto-chan had only just started school, she had already been expelled. Fancy being expelled from the first grade!

It had happened only a week ago. Mother had been sent for by Totto-chan's homeroom teacher. The teacher asked Mother to take her to another school. “Your daughter disrupts my whole class”, said the teacher. She added that Totto wouldn’t stop open and close the desk although she didn’t wanna take something in it. Mother remembered that Totto will not stop doing something which was new and interesting to her. “her problem was not only that”, added the teacher. After being bored to the desk, totto stood at the window. When she saw street musicians, she called them and asked them to play music. And it was disturbing the teaching-learning process. The next day, Totto still stood at the window, she talked loud. When teacher check who was Totto talking with, she didn’t see anything but swallow. Totto wanted to sit again when the teacher gave her crayon. But  Totto drew on her desk. Listened to Totto’s act at school, Mother agreed to take Totto to another school.

The new school

When she saw the gate of the new school, Totto-chan stopped. The gate of the school

she used to go to had fine concrete pillars with the name of the school in large characters. The gate of this new school simply consisted of two rather short posts that still had twigs and leaves on them. When she got closer, she had to put her head to one side to read the name of the school because the wind had blown the sign askew. "To-mo-e Ga-ku-en.". "Mother, is that really a train! There, in the school grounds!", said Totto Chan.

The school had made use of six abandoned railroad cars. To Tottochan it seemed something you might dream about. A school in a train!

 “I Like This School!”

Totto chan was very happy looking the train-school. She wanted to run in soon, but her mother didn’t allow because totto chan had not been accepted yet. “I think I like this school”, said Totto chan. Mother felt like telling her that it wasn't a matter of whether she liked the school but whether the headmaster liked her.  Mother just said “if you want to get on this train, you have to be nice and polite to the headmaster”.

The headmaster office was not in the railroad car, but it was in the small building on the right-hand side. Before meet the headmaster, Totto chan whispered to her mother "The man we're going to see must be a stationmaster because he owned these trains!". There was no time to explain, mother simply said “anyway, what about Daddy? He plays the violin and owns several violins, but that doesn't make our house a violin shop, does it?"

The headmaster

When Mother and Totto-chan went in, the man in the office got up from his chair. With a hasty bow, Totto-chan asked him spiritedly "What are you, a schoolmaster or a stationmaster?". Mother was embarrassed, but before she had time to explain, he laughed and replied, "I'm the head-master of this school."

The headmaster offered her a chair and turned to Mother and asked her to go home because he wanted to talk to Totto-chan.

The headmaster got closer to tottochan and asked her to tell everything about her. 

Totto chan tell him everything, about her dog, Rocky, about how fast her train, about her father who could swim well, about her scar dress because she always passing the iron fence. There’s no one listen to Totto chan enthusiastically like headmaster did.

Lunchtime

Headmaster took totto chan where the children had lunch. They didn’t lunch in the train but in the Assembly Hall. There are fifty children in that school. When everyone was seated, the headmaster asked the pupils if they had all brought something from the ocean and something from the hills. Totto chan wondered what kind of menu that was. She never thought that lunchtime could be this fun.

  Totto chan starts school

After the headmaster said “now you are a pupil of this school”, Totto chan cant wait for the next day. She had never looked forward to a day so much. Mother usually had trouble getting Totto-chan out of bed in the morning, but that day she was up before anyone else, all dressed and waiting with her schoolbag snapped to her back.

Mother had a lot to do. She busily made up a box lunch containing "something from the ocean and something from the hills" while she gave Totto-chan her breakfast. Mother also put Totto-chan's train pass in a plastic case and hung it around Tottochan's neck on a cord so she wouldn't lose it. Rocky, her dog took totto chan into the train station.

The classroom in the train

No one had arrived yet when Totto-chan got to the door of the railroad car the headmaster had told her would be her classroom. She was very happy in that school, she stood in that car and sang loudly. Just at that moment, her classmates came one by one. Eventually there were nine pupils in the car. They comprised the first grade at Tomoe Gakuen.

They would all be traveling together on the same train.

 Lesson at Tomoe

Going to school in a railroad car seemed unusual enough, but the seating arrangements turned out to be unusual, too. They were allowed to sit everywhere they liked at anytime. The most unusual thing of all about this school, however, was the lessons themselves. Schools normally schedule one subject, for example, Japanese, the first period, when you just do Japanese; then, say, arithmetic the second period, when you just do arithmetic. But here it was quite different. At the beginning of the first period, the teacher made a list of all the problems and questions in the subjects to be studied that day. Then she would say, "Now, start with any of these you like."

This method of teaching enabled the teachers to observe--as the children progressed to higher grades --what they were interested in as well as their way of thinking and their character. It was an ideal way for teachers to really get to know their pupils. So study was mostly independent, with pupils free to go and consult the teacher whenever necessary. The teacher would come to them, too, if they wanted, and explain any problem until it was thoroughly understood. On study process, Totto chan stared at unusual walked boy. She asked him why did he walk like that and he gently said that he had a polio. He was yasuaki. From that on they became friends.

Sea food and land food

Now it was time for "something from the ocean and something from the hills," the lunch hour Totto-chan had looked forward to so eagerly. The headmaster had adopted the phrase to describe a balanced meal--the kind of food he expected you to bring for lunch in addition to your rice. headmaster asked parents to include in their children's lunchboxes "something from the ocean and something from the hills." "Something from the ocean" meant sea food-- things such as fish and tsukuda-ni (tiny crustaceans and the like boiled in soy sauce and sweet sake), while "something from the hills" meant food from the land--like vegetables, beef, pork, and chicken.

            Totto-chan's lunch contained bright yellow scrambled eggs, green peas, brown denbu, and pink naked cod roe. It was as colorful as a newer garden. "How very pretty," said the headmaster. Totto-chan was thrilled. "Mother's a very good cook," she said.

  “Chew It Well!”

Normally one starts a meal by saying, "Iradokimasu" (I gratefully partake), but another thing that was different at Tomoe Gakuen was that first of all everybody sang a song. After they did it, they all said “itadakimasu” and settled down to "something from the ocean and something from the hills." For a while the Assembly Hall was quiet.

 School walks

After had lunch, teacher took children to walked before returning to the classroom. Tottochan often walked with her dad and Rocky, but she just knew there’s a school walk. They went to Kohonbutsu temple. On the way to the temple teacher asked children why flowers bloom and explain them that butterflies helped flowers bloom. They discussed everything they saw along the way. When they couldn’t find the answer, teacher helped them. Children didn’t realize that they were learning something from the school walk.

 The school song  

Each day in Tomoe Gakuen was filled with surprises for Totto chan. One day, on her way to school in the train, Totto-chan suddenly began wondering whether Tomoe had a school song. She couldn’t wait to come to school soon and ask the headmaster to make a school song. The headmaster promised tomorrow they will have a school song.

Next morning, there was a notice in each classroom requiring everyone to assemble

in the school grounds. Headmaster announced that he had a school song and asked children to sing it together. The song was funny for the children, it was only “Tomoe, tomoe, tomoe, tomoe!”. Totto chan expected some fancy words to the lyric. Children didn’t like the song, but headmaster wasn’t angry. He was sorry couldn’t make the better one. And Tomoe Gakuen never had a school song.

“Put It All Back!"

Totto-chan had never labored so hard in her life. What a day that was when she dropped her favorite purse down the toilet! It had no money in it, but Totto-chan loved the purse so much. Totto-chan had a curious habit. Ever since she was small, whenever she went to the toilet, she made it a point to peer down the hole after she had finished. She must have Loosened her hold on the purse at that moment, for it slipped out of her hand and dropped down the hole with a splash.

But Totto-chan refused to shed tears or give up the purse as lost. She went to the janitor's shed and got a large, long-handled wooden ladle used for watering the garden. After finding its cover, she began her task. She started ladling out the contents of the cesspool.

There was quite a pile on the ground when the headmaster happened to pass by. He asked Totto chan what she did there. He didn’t angry Totto chan had made it messed, he just asked her to put it all back. Adults might be angry looking at totto chan’s act, but didn’t the headmaster.

Totto chan couldn’t find her purse and finally she gave up but she kept her promise to put it all back to the tank.

Totto chan’s name

Totto-chan's real name was Tetsuko. Before she was born all Mother's and Daddy's friends and relatives said they were sure the baby would be a boy. It was their first child, and they believed it. So they decided to name the baby Toru. When the baby turned out to be a girl, they were a bit disappointed, but they both liked the Chinese character for toru (which means to penetrate, to carry far, to be clear and resonant, as a voice) so they made it into a girl's name by using its Chinese-derived pronunciation tetsu and adding the suffix ko often used for girls' names. So everybody called her Tetsuko-chan (chan is the familiar form of the san used after a person's name). But it didn't sound quite like Tetsuko-chan to her. Whenever anyone asked her what her name was, she would answer, "Totto-chan." She even thought that chan was part of her name, too.

Daddy sometimes called her Totsky, as if she were a boy. He'd say, "Totsky! Come and help me take these bugs off the roses!" But except for Daddy and Rocky everybody else called her Totto-chan, and although she wrote her name as Tetsuko in her notebooks at school, she still went on thinking of herself as Totto-chan.

Radio comedians

Totto chan was very upset because her mother didn’t allow her listening comedians on the radio. That was because when Totto chan’s dad brought his friend home, Totto chan said impolitely to him, imitating the comedians on the radio.

After that Totto-chan had to listen in secret when Mother and Daddy were out. When

the comedians were good, she would laugh uproariously

Railroad Car Arrives

"There's a new railroad car coming tonight," said Miyo-chan during the lunchtime break. Miyo-chan was the headmaster's third daughter and was in Totto-chan's class. All children were curious how it would be carried and what route it would take to get to school. After discussing the possibilities, they finally decided not to go home that afternoon to wait and see the car arrived.

Head master told them that cars arrived very late tonight. He asked them to go home first and asked permission to their parents. Then they can come back if they like with their pajamas and a blanket after they've had their dinner. Children were more excited.

Mother got out Totto-chan's pajamas and a blanket, and after dinner she took her to

the school. A couple of other mothers, too, had come with their children. They looked as if they would like to stay, but after entrusting their children to the head-master's care, they went home. Headmaster asked children to sleep first, he promised will wake the them up when it arrived.

Totto chan woke up hearing her friends yelled “it’s here! It’s here”. It had come on a large trailer pulled by a tractor from the Oimachi Line depot. Tottochan and the others learned something they didn't know before--that there was something called a tractor that could pull a trailer, which was much bigger than a cart. They were impressed. They wouldn’t forgot that moment.

The swimming pool

That was a red-letter day for Totto-chan. It was the first time she had ever swum in a pool. And without a stitch on! That was a hot day, the head master took children to the swimming pool to swum together without a swimsuit. The headmaster asked them to take off their swimsuit was to teach them that diversity wasn’t the problem, children body was beautiful.  Among the pupils at Tomoe were some who had had polio, like Yasuaki-chan, or were very small, or otherwise handicapped and he felt if they bared their bodies and played together it

would rid them of feelings of shame and help to prevent them developing an inferiority complex.

The report card

Looking neither right nor left, her bag flapping against her back, Totto-chan ran all the way home from the station. Anyone seeing her would have thought something terrible had happened. She had started running as soon as she was out of the school gate.

Once home she showed her report card proudly to Rocky. There were A's and B's and other characters. Naturally, Totto-chan didn't know yet whether A was better than B or whether B was better than A. But Totto-chan wanted to show her very first report card to Rocky before anyone else, and she was sure Rocky would be delighted.

Summer Vacation Begins

Headmaster sent a note to the parents, informed them that children were going to camping. Totto chan wondering what camping meant. Her mother didn’t know it for sure too, because the headmaster always had his own way.

The next day, when children were in the Assembly Hall, the headmaster showed them to set up tents. They had camping in the hall to avoid the rain. It was camping without any moon or stars, but the children enjoyed it thoroughly. To them that little Assembly Hall seemed like a real camping ground, and memory wrapped that night in moonbeams and starlight forever

The great adventure

Two days after they camped in the Assembly Hall, the day of Totto-chan's great adventure finally came to pass. It was the day of her appointment with Yasuaki-chan. And it was a secret that neither Mother nor Daddy nor Yasuaki-chan's parents knew. She had invited Yasuaki-chan to her tree. The students at Tomoe each had a tree in the school grounds they considered their own climbing tree.

The children considered "their" trees their own private property, so if you wanted to

climb someone else's tree you had to ask their permission very politely, saying,

"Excuse me, may I come in!"

Because Yasuaki-chan had had polio he had never climbed a tree, and couldn't claim one as his own. That's why Totto-chan decided to invite him to her tree. she helped Yasuaki chan hardly climb her tree and he tried hard too to do it.

            Yasuaki-chan struggled with all his might, and finally reached the top. They were satisfied. On the top of the tree they had conversations. for Yasuaki-chan

it was the first and last time he ever climbed a tree.

The bravery test

When children were bored playing riddle, the headmaster announced that they will have a bravery test at Kohonbutsu temple. About seven boys vied for the privilege. When the children assembled at the school on the appointed evening, the boys who were going to be ghosts brought costumes they had made themselves and went off to hide in the temple grounds. The remaining thirty or so children divided themselves into small groups of about five and set off for Kuhonbutsu at staggered intervals. The headmaster explained that although this was a test to see how brave they were, it would be perfectly all right if anybody wanted to come back without finishing the course.

            Totto-chan made up her mind not to go all the way to the graveyard. That's where the ghosts were bound to be waiting, and anyway she felt she now knew all about bravery tests and could go back. The others in her group made the same decision at the same time.

Just then, a boy with a white cloth over his head came through the gate crying, accompanied by a teacher. He was one of the ghosts and had been crouching in the graveyard the whole time, but nobody had come and he got more and more scared and finally went outside and was found crying in the road by the patrolling teacher

who brought him back.

 The Rehearsal Hall

Daddy took Totto chan to his Rehearsal Hall. Daddy played violin with Mr. Rosenstock, He was from Germany. Daddy admired him so much. He was a very famous conductor in Europe.  He moved to Japan because a man called Hitler was starting to do terrible things there. Totto chan liked seeing him speaking Japanese. She thought his dialect was funny. Totto chan was happy in the rehearsal hall, It was rather Western in style, and a bit

dilapidated.

 A Trip to a Hot Spring

Tomoe Gakuen students had a trip to a hot spring. They had to get on Toyoko train at Jiyugaoka and ship before arrived there. The children were amazingly well behaved. Nobody ran up and down the cars, and the only talking was done quietly among those sitting next to each other. The Tomoe pupils had never once been told they should get in line and walk properly and keep quiet on the train and not drop litter on the floor when they ate their food.

            Toi Spa was in a quiet, beautiful village on the sea surrounded by wooded hills. After a short rest the teachers took the children down to the sea. It wasn't like the swimming pool at school so they wore their swimsuits. Children had so much fun there. That was an unforgettable moment in Tomoe.

Eurythmics

Before starting Tomoe Gakuen, the headmaster, Sosaku Kobayashi, went to Europe to see how children were being educated abroad. He visited a great many elementary schools and talked to educators. In Paris, he met Dalcroze, a fine composer as well as an educator. Dalcroze had spent a long rime wondering how children could be taught to hear and feel music in their minds lather than just with their ears; how to make them feel music as a thing of movement rather than a dull, lifeless subject; how to awaken a child's sensitivity. Eventually, after watching the way children jumped and skipped and romped about, he hit on the idea of creating rhythmic exercises, which he called eurythmics. Kobayashi attended the Dalcroze school in Paris for over a year and learned this system thoroughly. Sosaku Kobayashi was the first to apply it to elementary education in Japan and Children could practicing it well.

“The Only Thing I Want!”

It was the first time Totto-chan had ever been to a temple fair. Totto-chan poked her head inside each of the little stalls. As she walked along, her eyes darting this way and that,Totto-chan suddenly stopped. she saw a box full of yellow baby chicks all cheeping away. She begged her mom to buy it for her but her mom didn’t allow her to have it because these baby chicks were going to die very soon. Totto-chan had set her heart on having a baby chick, and wouldn't listen. "We don't want you to have one because it will only make you cry in the end.", said mom. Totto-chan burst out crying and started walking home with tears streaming down her

Cheeks. Finally Mother and Daddy gave in. It was like sunshine after rain. Totto-chan was all smiles now as she walked home carrying a small box containing two baby chicks.

            on the fourth day one of them stopped moving and on the fifth day the other did, too. She stroked them and called to them, but they didn't give a single "cheep.". She had never wanted anything so much in her life and now it was gone so soon. It was her first experience of loss and separation

Their Worst Clothes

The headmaster was always asking parents to send their children to school at Tomoe in their worst clothes. He wanted them to wear their worst clothes so that it wouldn't matter if they got muddy and torn. He thought it a shame for children to worry about being scolded if their clothes got dirty or to hesitate joining in some game because their clothes might get torn. So totto chan did. She always came home with her cloth and its torn on it but Totto chan mother understood it.

Takahasi

There was a new student in Totto chan’s class. He was Takahasi, although he was a boy, was much smaller still, with short arms and legs. His hands, in which he held his hat, were small, too. But he had broad shoulders.

Totto chan and other childrens took him to see the classroom in the train. He told them that he was from Osaka. Osaka was a dream city Totto chan had never seen. From that on, they became friends.

  "Look before You Leap!"

On the way home from school, just as she had almost reached home, Totto-chan discovered something enticing by the side of the road. It was a huge pile of sand. But it wasn't sand after all! Inside, it was a heap of prepared gray wall plaster. She sank into it with a "blop" and found herself covered in the gummy stuff right up to her chest, like a statue, complete with schoolbag and shoe bag.

            As evening fell and it began to get dark, Mother came looking for her and was astonished to find Totto-chan's head sticking out of the pile. She found a pole and had Totto-chan hold one end of it while she pulled her out. She had first tried to pull her out by hand, but Mother's foot started to get stuck in the plaster.

Totto-chan was covered with gray plaster just like a wall. from that moment Totto chan promised will never jump anywhere.

 “And Then... Uh…”

Lunchtime at Tomoe had always been fun, but lately a new interest had been added. The headmaster wanted to teach children how to talk, so he asked one of them to give a tittle talk when they had their lunch time. Japanese children are usually taught at home not to talk at mealtimes. But as a result of his experience abroad, the headmaster used to encourage his pupils to take plenty of time over their meals and enjoy conversation.

One day, a boy who couldn’t speak well didn’t have any idea about what to talk. He told his daily activities with fillers “and then… uh…” while he thought something to continue his speech. 

**To be continued