George visits a Japanese school library

George hangs out in the library at Motoyama Elementary School.

I went to see a school in Japan.
It was an elementary school.
It had a kindergarten.
It had grades 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and 6, like CMDS.
George went along.
He wanted to meet the kids.
He thought if would be fun.
And it was!

We went to the school library.
George looked at the books.
He opened a book.
It was different from our books.
The front cover of the book was different.
It was where the BACK cover of our books would be.
The pages of the story were different.
They were supposed to be turned from left to right.

George picks a book, and discovers that the back is really the front!

To see what I mean, hold a book.
Turn it over to the back cover.
Start at the end of the story.
Imagine that it is the beginning of the story.
Turn the pages backward.
Imagine if the story went in that order.
That is what Japanese books are like.
They are backwards to our books.
Our books are backwards to the Japanese.

So George turned the pages from left to right.
I could not read the story to him.
It was in Japanese.
But we looked at the pictures.
We tried to imagine the story, from the pictures.

George looks at the pictures and tries to guess what the characters are saying.

Look at the page, in the photo.
The story has a bear, a panda, and a rabbit in it.
George thinks that they look very worried.
What do you think they are worrying about?
Can you make up a story about the picture?