Yoshiko Uchida

Yoshiko Uchida, a Japanese-American author, wrote for both adults and children. Much of her writing was centered on her cultural identity. As a young woman, Uchida lived in an American internment camp during WWII and this event seems to have greatly influenced her writing. I read Uchida’s version of a Japanese folktale, The Wise Old Woman, a book published posthumously.

The Wise Old Woman is the story of a farmer and his mother. It has been made law by the cruel lord that all people seventy and over are to be sent to the mountains to die. The cruel lord considers the elderly useless. The farmer, though, cannot bear to leave his mother in the mountains. He chooses to hide her in his home instead. One day, a stronger lord threatens to take over the village unless someone can solve his three impossible tasks. No one, not even the clever badger, can solve the tasks except for the old woman. When the cruel lord learns who saved his village he sees the wisdom in old age and changes his law. This story, of course, teaches readers to honor their elders’ wisdom and experience not only because it is right to do so but because it is the intelligent path.

The novel is accompanied by beautiful pictures, crafted after Asian ink and watercolor paintings. The paintings compliment the simple, straightforward language of the story, and I enjoyed them. The moral seemed very familiar to me and while I can’t place where I originally read this story, I’m sure it was through a folktale from a different culture. I think this book would be interesting addition to a unit studying folk tales of different cultures. After hearing the story and discussing the moral, students could be asked to write about a time they learned something from their grandparents or an elderly person. I know I would have written about my grandfather teaching me to tie my shoes. My parents couldn’t teach me, they were both left-handed, but my grandfather was right-handed like me.

Uchida, who died in 1992, provided some of the first books for and about Japanese-American children including the following:

-Journey to Topaz
-A Jar of Dreams
-The Bracelet
- Journey Home
-The Best Bad Thing
-Samurai of Gold Hill
-The Promised Year
-The Magical Listening Cap: More Folk Tale from Japan
-The Dancing Kettle and other Japanese Folktales

Uchida, Y. (1994). The wise old woman. Hong Kong: South China Publishing.