My recommended Japanese Picture Book! A Review of "The Family of Fourteen Fix Breakfast"

  • Hello!  I am "Toko of Tokyo."
  • I live in Japan with my husband and 4-year-old daughter, and I am now a full-time homemaker. 


  • Today, I review one of my favorite Japanese picture books, The Family of Fourteen Fix Breakfast written and illustrated by Kazuo Iwamura, and translated by Arthur Binard. 


  • Spoilers ahead, so if you mind, please read the book for yourself first! 

The　family　of　fourteen　fix　breakfast

posted with ヨメレバ

いわむらかずお/アーサー・ビナード 童心社 2005年08月

  • The Family of Fourteen Fix Breakfast is a story in which a big family of 14 mice work together to get ready for breakfast.  The family is made up of Grandma, Grandpa, Mom, Dad, four daughters and six sons, and the children are named after numbers from 1 to 10.  For example, the eldest brother's name is Ikkun, which is named after Japanese number 1="ichi."
  • This book was first published in 1983 and since then has been read by a lot of Japanese children over generations.
  • Do you like Beatrix Potter's world such as The Tale of Peter Rabbit, Alison Uttley's Little Grey Rabbit Books, or Jill Barklem's Brambly Hedge Series?  (I do!)  If you like these books with amazing illustration of animals and nature, I think you will also like the Family of Fourteen Series as well.  
  • You will instantly find the author Kazuo Iwamura brought enormous passion to creating the world of the Family of Fourteen.  Anthropomorphized mice that are dressed,  lush trees, a rush-rambling creek, beautiful birds & insects & flowers, a big-size forest from the point of mice... the illustration, which has both sophistication and warmth, is just eye-pleasing. 
  • The family members are each doing different things in one page, so you can have much fun in following each activity.  For example, when they are setting a breakfast table, Natchan is laying spoons, Satchan is pouring raspberry juice into Hakkun's cup, Mom is treating Rokkun's finger, Dad is putting soup into each bowl, Kunchan is taking a nut roll from Grandma's basket, and Nikkun with a bellflower mask over his head is chasing the youngest brother Tokkun, who is very pleased.  My daughter Mille likes this "bellflower chase" scene very much.  
  • If you are a food lover like me, this book will probably be your favorite one!  The children go raspberry picking, Dad cooks a pot of mushroom and vegetable soup outside the house, and Grandma, Mom, Satchan & Yotchan bake nut rolls which are "crisp on the outside, and fluffy on the inside."  Their breakfast is true nature bounty, and makes you drool!  
  • The narrator sometimes gives "question-style" sentences such as "who's up there tasting instead of picking?" or "Who's that wearing a fine flower hat?"  When a young reader meets such a sentence, they look more carefully at the illustration in order to answer the question.  So this book is partly a kind of "I Spy" book.  Thanks to these quiz-style sentences, a young reader  all the more concentrates on the world of the Family of Fourteen.  
  • In this book, each member of the family cooperates with one another when getting ready for breakfast.  Even the youngest child Tokkun wipes a big table with a kitchen cloth. 
  • The older brothers and sisters kindly take care of the younger ones.  For instance, Satchan (the third child) dries Tokkun (the youngest child)'s wet bed, and Ikkun (the oldest btother) gives Kunchan (the ninth child) a piggyback ride when she is tired. 
  • Since there are as many as ten children in the family, it is sometimes difficult to tell one child from another.  Goukun and Yotchan are easy to tell because the former always wears a blue cap and the latter, a green hat.  Kunchan is also very easy to differentiate  because she wears a yellow ribbon on her head and she often has a stuffed mouse.  On the other hand, Ikkun and Nikkun are confusing, and so are Rokkun and Hakkun for me.  When I cannot tell which from which, I check the front and back cover of the book, which shows all the members with their name.  
  • Finally, I will show you a handy tip to enjoy this book more:  The fifth child named Goukun and the seventh child named Natchan are like cats and dogs (although they are both mice!).   They skirmish with each other in several pages, so again as in a "I Spy" book, you can enjoy looking for their little hassles.  Well, as a Japanese proverb says, "the closer you are, the more you fight"!  

Thank you very much for reading and I hope you are interested in this book!   Bye for now♪

English Article