Japan's Thatched-Roof Villages & Mountain Hamlets Coloring Book

About this book

Sixty real thatched-roof villages of Japan — and every one of them ready to color.

This book walks the old thatched country from north to south, and every stop is a real place in its real landscape: the grass-walled Ainu chise of Shiraoi in Hokkaido, the bent magariya farmhouses of Maezawa where horses lived under the same roof, a thatched railway station under cherry blossoms at Yunokami-Onsen, the praying-hands gassho houses gathered at Suganuma and Gero, the ring village of Oginojima whose roofs face a shared green, the cliff hamlet of Ochiai terraced above the Iya valley, the vine bridge of Nishi-Iya, farm mansions like the Baba house of Matsumoto and the former Tomioka residence of Nara, and the ancient straw-roofed dwellings of Yoshinogari, rebuilt from Japan's earliest village.

Every subject appears as a two-page spread: on one side, a full-color photo guide with a short, fascinating story — the place's history, its roof craft, its landscape, and exactly how to color it — and on the other, a detailed coloring page of the very same view, converted from the real photograph so the scene you color is the scene itself.

Inside you will find: • Hokkaido and Tohoku — the Ainu chise of Shiraoi, Michinoku Folk Village, the magariya bent houses of Iwate and the farm fortress of the Konno house • Fukushima and the Kanto museums — the thatched station of Yunokami-Onsen, Heike no Sato, and the saved farmhouses of Nihon Minka-en, Edo-Tokyo and Boso-no-Mura • The gassho country and the Japan Alps — Suganuma, the Murakami house of Kaminashi, Oginojima's ring of roofs, the honmune roof of Matsumoto's Baba house • Kansai's old farmhouses — the Hakogi house, the farm mansions of Nara and the Tamba hills, a thatched roof under cherry blossoms in Sasayama • Shikoku and Kyushu — the cliff hamlet of Ochiai, the vine bridges of the Iya valley, Shikoku Mura's saved farmhouses, Yoshinogari's ancient village, and the farmhouses of Saga and Miyazaki • 60 full-color photo guides with the story of each place (about 88–114 words each) • None of these sixty subjects appeared in our previous Japan coloring books

Sixty villages under straw, one long walk from the snows of Hokkaido to the plains of Kyushu — bring pencils, and take your time.

Written and created in Japan by Japanese author Aki Wakamatsu. Published by Takikawa TOKOTOKO Kids LLC, a Japanese publisher in Hokkaido, Japan. Authentic Japanese content, carefully made in Japan — not mass-produced.