Author(s): Mayumi Otero

children's picture books

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Once, in a country far away, there lived a peasant farmer and his wife.  They had no children and every day, to lift their spirits on the walk to and from the fields, they sang:

"We'd like a little boy, any size at all.

We'd like him little, we'd like him small,

We'd love him tiniest of all."

A Miracle happened.

They had a child.   But - and this hardly came as  a surprise - he really was tiny.  And they called him Issun Boshi, "the One-Inch Boy."

Based on a traditional Japanese folktale.