Young Japanese 100

1940 [Military-tinged] fairytale released by or
with the approval of the Ministry of Education

1922 A book about play theory or therapy

1899 A series for boys with foreign biographies
- in this case, [the Indian] Buddha

1926 Cover and page illustration
from the first girl club book series

1914 First boy's anthology book
- in this case poems about water

1913 Aiko series

1914 Aiko series

1891 A boy's book, marking the beginning of modern
childrens' literature, influenced by german works.

1921

1928

About three images from each of 100 japanese books issued between 1869 and 1944 are on display at the International Institute for Childrens Literature in Osaka. They are accompanied by descritpions (in japanese; hence the captions here are rough paraphrasings). I think the above examples give a fair indication of the great diversity, graphic design and printing quality in japanese book production in the early/modern era. I was pleasantly surprised with the standards and there is obviously a styling influence from abroad, particularly France. [via lotusgreen]

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Some other places, in addition to the sidebar links, that I either admire, am jealous of, subscribe to, am inspired and/or entertained by and/or wish I had the time to visit more often:

It's Olivia, Popaula, The Wit of the Staircase, Sorrow at Sills Bend, Scarlet Letters, JuJu Loves Polkadots, BLDGBLOG, swissmiss, Oink!, Inky Circus, The 7 Deadly Sinners, Graphic Design Bar, Gatochy, Tinselman, MODE, Blogging the Renaissance, Barista, Archaeoastronomy, La Boîte à Images, Drink Me, Hooting Yard, Foreword, Ample Sanity, Pink Tentacle, Shao Kelake, Newsgrist, Generator.x, ShiftBlog, Corsinet, The Cartoonist, Blue Tea, dataisnature, What is Going On?, Dirty, Mefi/Mofi/MeCha, Ober Dicta, Transfer, Punio, Vvork, Danny Yee, monochrom, Livre Ancien, Erebos, Paperholic, Sepia Mutiny, RecordBrother, Girl Wonder, Panopticist, Make Ready, Bezembinder, Rabbits, Toyen and so forth, Monsterbrains, loreto martin, MadMeg, Catatau, O'Connors O'Pinions, Eye Level.

Not in any order and certainly not a complete list of everywhere I go (well in fact, I spend more than 1/2 my web life crawling upside down through musty caves in digital repositories, but those links I post each day). All the major food groups are represented. Bon appétit!