It’s been a strange year, this 2020. But one thing in particular that COVID-19 has impacted—apart from everything else in life—is that no one in the Midwest wants to host garage sales anymore! It’s a sad place to be, sitting there on a hot Saturday morning with nowhere to go.

Thankfully, the Little Free Libraries are always open (and their maps are surprisingly accurate). Now I can get my weekly fix of, “I never knew I wanted to read this book that I didn’t know existed.” Summer is here again.

I picked up this beautifully illustrated book (well, beautiful apart from the cover) by Japanese-American author Taro Yashima from one of those free libraries. Ostensibly, I got it for my kids, but since they’re both at the age of starting chapter books, I admit that I did have ulterior motives.

I have a soft spot for children’s stories from Asia, especially the folk tales. I’m not so big on the magical or fanciful stories like the Monkey King or anything like that, but there’s just something about the quaint topics in books about ancient Asian families and farming that intrigues me. Other books that fall into this category might be The Emperor’s Garden or Ming-Lo Moves the Mountain, both of which are classics worth looking up.

In this story, Chibi (“tiny boy”) enters school from his home somewhere over the mountains and is immediately bullied by his classmates and viewed as an idiot. Rather than keeping away from school or quitting altogether, Chibi continues, day after day, walking to school and avoiding the teasing faces of the bullies in class by focusing on something—anything—else, and then walking home.

Finally, when Chibi and his classmates reach sixth grade, they get a new teacher who recognizes something special in Chibi. Actually, he recognizes a whole bunch of special things about Chibi, that he’s a beautiful painter and calligraphy artist, that he knows more about the natural world than anyone else in school—all because he had distracted himself with these things throughout the last five years.

The teacher also recognizes that Chibi has a unique talent which the whole village needs to learn about. During a talent show, the teacher encourages Chibi to perform for the class his crow-calls. The kids laugh at first, but as he goes through the sounds of baby crows, mama and daddy crows, happy crows and sad crows, the children realize that they’re getting a glimpse of a Chibi they’d ever known. They all weep from shame for having treated him so poorly.

In the end, Chibi receives the only perfect-attendance award for never having missed a single day of school for those six years, despite his lengthy mountain walk. But it was on those walks at dawn and dusk where Chibi had learned and perfected his crow calls, and from that time on, he’s proud to answer to his new nickname, “Crow Boy,” which is at least better than “idiot” or “tiny boy.”

The purpose of this book—which parents and teachers can use as a teaching aid—is likely two-fold. First, bullies and all of us need to realize that, just because a person might be “different” doesn’t mean they’re worse.

Second, the bullied might find his solace in ignoring the taunts and jeers of the jerks around them, not by focusing more on himself but rather by distracting himself with the world around him. This second lesson likely rubs our self-esteem culture the wrong way, but Chibi maintained his personal attendance by not letting the teasing get to him, and the only way he was able to accomplish this was by never focusing on himself. Instead, he studied the grains of his wooden desk, the fabric on the shirt of the student sitting in front of him, or the rain streaking down the window.

Chibi’s distracted world wasn’t a lie but rather an opening into a reality outside himself. For Chibi, such distractions were therapeutic, and for any bullied individual, it’s possible that finding a healthy distraction can help keep his mind clear of pain and shame. Certainly parents need to use some discretion when discussing the issue of bullying, but this book might be a good jumping-off point.

I doubt I’ll keep Crow Boy in our family library, not because we hated it, but because bullying isn’t really an issue for us at home-school. Oh, also the fact that my kids haven’t spoken to another human being outside our family for over 70 days.

Like I said: it’s been a strange year, this 2020.

©2020 E.T.

Read Some Other Kids’ Books Based on Asian Folktales:

• Crow Boy by Taro Yashima (1955)
• Thrump-O-Moto (The Little Samurai) by James Clavell (1976)
• Ming Lo Moves the Mountain by Arnold Lobel (1982)
• A Grain of Rice by Helena Clare Pittman (1986)
• Peach Boy by William H. Hooks (1992)
• The Emperor’s Garden by Ferida Wolff (1994)