When are you going to take your hat off?
(Find me at 50 Watts Books.)
Images from Yasuo Segawa's Boshi (A Straw Hat), Japan 1983
I wanted to share the elaborate printed boards for Yasuo Segawa's Boshi (A Straw Hat), a book I randomly found in the library. The interior illustrations, though not in the style of the covers, are also charming.
Yasuo Segawa has illustrated numerous books for many different authors (note that he wrote Boshi). A quick search reveals that many were translated into English in the 70s. (These can be found as cheap ex-library copies). Six of his books, including Boshi, are available from the publisher Fukuinkan Shoten.
Description of Boshi: "Segawa's genuis in artistic design is developed most unexpectedly in this beautiful book about a straw hat which is worn successively by Japanese popular heroes before it comes to its real owner, Miho the little girl."
Prizes:
--Japan Picture Prize, 1987 (the illustrations are dated 1983 though 1987 is given as the date of first publication)
--The Kodansha Culture Prize for Children's Picture Book Publication, 1988
Segawa was a Hans Christian Andersen award nominee in 1976, 1986, 1988, 1990, 1992, 1994, and 1996. He won the BIB Grand Prix in 1967.
