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November 11, 2006

Lynne Reid Banks and translator Natusko Watanabe



Here is Lynne Reid Banks and Natsuko Watanabe. Watanabe-san (Ms. Watanabe) translated the Indian in the Cupboard trilogy into Japanese. It was published in Japanese in 1995 by Komine-Shoten Co. She came to hear Lynne Reid Banks speak today.

Lynn Reid Banks talked about the inspiration of some of her books. It was very interesting. She is a very animated speaker and a very good writer. It was a pleasure to hear her read passages from her books, too. She signed our old copy of The Indian in the Cupboard.


Here are the books translated in Japanese. The first is on the right, the second is in the middle, the third is on the left. As you can see, the titles are printed in English, too. The Indian in the Cupboard is ritoru beaa or Little Bear in Japanese. The Return of the Indian is called ritoru beaa to fushigina kagi which can be translated as Little Bear and the Wonder Key. The Secret of the Indian is ritoru beaa no fushigina tabi which can be translated as Little Bear and the Wonder Trip. Book titles and movie titles are sometimes changed when they come to Japan. Book covers, too. Book covers also change over the years. Click on Lynne Reid Banks to see the current U.S. book covers. Click on the "books" label below to see how other book covers have changed when they came to Japan.

2 comments:

  1. Great photos Annie

    There was some discussion on the major differences between the covers of the UK edition, US edition and Japanese edition. Each culture has it's own book cover focused to appeal to the local market. It woud be interesting to see a comparison perhaps.

    John

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  2. Thanks, John Shelley. I missed that discussion! If I had stepped back a bit I could've gotten the English version next to the Japanese versions! I've edited the post and directed readers to Lynne Reid Banks website. Thanks.
    I was just so happy to get a picture of her and the translator together. And the permission from Noriko Kojima, the Japanese editor.
    Maybe I can show your, John Shelley's, book covers for the Japanese version of Charlie Bone to illustrate more book cover changes. Annie

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