Totto-chan, the little girl with the window

Totto-chan, the little girl with the window is an autobiographical novel of Japanese Littérature writes by Tetsuko Kuroyanagi and illustrated in the original edition by Chihiro Iwasaki, published in 1981 under the title Madogiwa No Totto-chan by Kodansha Ltd.

The novel was translated by Olivier Magnani with the Presses of the Rebirth

Before being a novel, the chapters were published in the form of serial in the review Young women of February 1979 in December 1980.

Characters

Tetsuko known as Totto-chan
His/her parents
Mr Sôsaku Kobayashi
Takahashi-kun
Miyo-chan
Yasuaki-chan
Sakko-chan
Tai-chan
Ôe-kun
Amadera-kun
Aiko Saisho
Migita-kun
Keiko Aoki
Toshiko Sakamoto
Yoshiharu Watanabe

Topics

The school, the education, the Childhood, the manhole of the others, the Japan.

History

On bottom of Second world war, Tetsuko known as Totto-chan little girl 6 year old intrepid and curious, its teacher disconcerts. She spends her days to open and close her desk or with speaking to the musicians about street by the window during the class. Its mistress thus sees herself forced to return it school. His/her parents then decide to register it in a Tomoe private establishment directed by Mr. Sosaku Kobayaski. In this establishment, the director put at it all his love, his patience, his thirst for knowledge to make an atypical school of it where the children find themselves in the center of the education system, where they learn by the practice rather than by the theory.

School of the “last chance” for Totto-chan, it is dazzled by this school where of old coaches of trains act as classroom, but also by this extraordinary director able to listen to it to speak during 4 hours of sharp.

Little by little, Totto-chan enters the trainings, learns the respect from the others and their differences, tenacity, autonomy, the mutual aid, the value of the friendship and to accept the failure.

The children study there happy until the school is destroyed in a bombardment.

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