Ten Oni Drummers

By Matthew Gollub

Book Overview

In this playful, rhyming picture book, a child learns to see monsters as his friends who chase away spooky dreams. Alone on a beach, in Japan, the boy sees a tiny oni creeping up from the sand. Soon there are two, then three of the colorful goblins, each with its own number written in kanji on its back. The cumulative counting chant begins: "Ichi, ni, san-tun-tun. One, two, three, around they run " As they beat their taiko drums they grow bigger--and more numerous. They carry on wildly, devour their dinner, smiling with crooked fangs and red eyes. What will they do with their very largest drum once all ten towering oni are assembled? With bright watercolor paintings, Stone draws on the folk culture of her native Japan to portray the monsters as both frightening and funny. The author's note further introduces Japanese taiko, oni, and kanji. A chart at the end shows how to draw and pronounce the Japanese numbers one through ten, symbols understood not just in Japan but in China and Korea too Also available in a Spanish-English bilingual edition.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1889910511
• ISBN13: 9781889910512
• Release Date: November 2018
• Publisher: Tortuga Press
• Length: 32 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 10.4" x 8.7"
• Age Range: 3 years and under

Customer Reviews

Ten Oni Drummers

One oni after another rise out of the sand in this delightful book by Matthew Gollub. In this book, the oni are not so much terrible and fierce, but endearing and protecting. They play their Japanese drums (taiko) to ward off any evil in their path. A brief history of the oni, the taiko, and kanji (Chinese characters that were adopted in written Japanese) appears at the end of the book, and a chart is included for those eager to learn to write the kanji. The illustrations by Kazuko Stone, are bright and cheerful and show the imagination that went into the making of the book.

A warm story of gentle monsters who help

Kazuko Stone illustrates Ten Oni Drummers, a Japanese story of a young boy who falls asleep on the beach in Japan, awakening in the night to find onis who play taiko drums loudly to chase away his bad dreams. A warm story of gentle monsters who help.