Drums of Noto Hanto

Each year a festival is held on the sea coast of Japan, commemorating a true event of 1576; this beautiful picture book presents the history, then and now.... In a story that cries out to be performed, the people of Nabune Japan, on the Noto Hanto coast, cleverly save their village from invading samurai by frightening the enemy away with masks and fires on the beach and...drums. From their ships the samurai believe that evil spirits are attacking them, but it is a marvelous trick that children will recognize as one they might play. And here is a glory of this dramatic book: It invites play and participation. Small and giant drum sounds -- titi tiki, Podo pada Poda pada, Ko to Ko to, DON kada DON kada DON DON DON -- pervade the telling. Children will join in. Another glory is the artwork, cut-paper "paintings" unlike any you've seen; they seem to swell with sound themselves, conveying the beauty of seaside landscape, the high-spirited action of the characters, the drama of the facts.