A wonderful tale of a young girl determined to change the outside to make it as beautiful as her garden in her home. She uses a kite to get her point to her father and the kitemaker makes her wish come true and her father tries to make the city like his daughter's garden as she wished in hopes of her returning home to him. A great story. A must read

Wonderful story & illustration

I loved this picture book! Some wonderful illustrations from Mercer Mayer, and an even better story to go along with it. A magical story of a privileged girl wondering what the world outside of her walls was like. After she sees that everyone is suffering beyond the walls, she vows to never come down from a kite she is flying on. Some unfortunate events happen and she flies away. Her emperor father vows to fix the horror outside the walls, and get his daughter back. A young samurai finds his daughter and returns her to see the major difference in life in and outside the walls.

At first, my kids and I thought that this book was based on a real folktale, but it came from Mercer Mayer's imagination and fascination with Japanese culture. He did an impressive job. The story is quite epic for a picture book!

1. Shibumi was locked inside a palace for most of her life before she climbed a tree and discovered a poor city. Enlisting the help of a kitemaker, she flies into the air and vows to not return until the city is beautiful. Her father spends years fixing the city and Shibumi eventually returns home.
2. This is a beautiful story which reminds me a lot of Aladdin. I enjoyed Shibumi's determination and her fight to make the city beautiful. I also really liked the ending which made a connection to today's world and the continued beauty of the city and the palace.
3. I would pair this book with "Baseball Saved Us" by Ken Mochizuki because of the similar cultural influences in both books.
4. "Shibumi had always thought that the city beyond her walled garden must be the most beautiful place on earth, but in reality only the palace and the little walled garden were beautiful."

Mercer Mayer was born in Arkansas and moved to Honolulu when he was thirteen. He went from a racially segregated South to a melting pot South Pacific island where he was one of only three white children in his homeroom class. Mayer, although not Japanese, does an excellent job of weaving into this picture book the linguistic rhythm of Japanese when translated into English. There is honor in his depiction of the Japanese. Mayer also made up the entire legend of Shibumi, which gets at the issue of western Ethnocentrism. I am hard-pressed to find any hint of it in the narrative or its illustrations.

BEAUTIFUL illustrations and a good, original story

I loved this beautiful picture book about how one person can change the world for everyone. It’s a must read.

The illustrations are fabulous. They make you feel like you want to go flying on the end of a kite.

It gets my Super Huggable Book Award.

This is definetely one of my favorite books from childhood. I loved the illustrations, as well as the ingenius story and way it was written. Abosolutely amazing! I highly recommend it.

Very good

Quit beautiful, lovely, beautiful culture based story to read!

Mayer branches out from his normal art style (which is mostly Euro-centric) to tackle a more Japanese style to accompany a Japanese story and setting. The artwork is not quite woodblock or Japanese inking, but it is none the less appealing and works well with Mayer's fictional legend. The motif of kites leading to social change actually seems to work well - enough to touch on more traditional Japanese legends of paper cranes and young girls crusading for social change. Bravo to Mayer for attempting to broaden his storytelling and artistic range.