Opening a book is like opening the door to different worlds. But what the end of a book brings us is not the closing of a door, but the opening of other doors, because when we read a story we come to see different worlds, and they are, in turn, beginnings.

Eiko Kadono was born in Tokyo in 1935. When she was ten, she was evacuated to northern Japan during WWII. These memories formed the basis of one of her best-known stories, Rasuto ran (Last run, 2011), and the experience of war as a child is at the root of her commitment to peace and happiness.

She studied American literature and then travelled extensively in Europe as well as in North and South America and began writing. She has published nearly 200 original works – picture books, books for pre-schoolers, fantasies, stories for young-adult and essay anthologies – as well as translated into Japanese more than 100 works by foreign authors including works by Raymond Briggs and Dick Bruna.
Her distinctive way with words and view of the world through the eye of the child has captured young readers from the 1970s onward. Her Little Ghosts series featuring good food and ghosts—two subjects always popular with children—presents the exploits of quirky characters Acchi, Kocchi, and Socchi.

Kadono’s literature is populated with unique characters endowed with the virtues and foibles of human beings everywhere, and her mellifluous style is touched with whimsy and humour. Her best-known works include Zubon senchosan no hanashi (Tales of an old sea captain, 1981) and Odorobo Burabura-shi (Grand thief Burabura, 1981), both of which have won prizes in Japan.

In 1985 she published the first of six volumes of Majo no takkyubin (Kiki’s delivery service, 1985) that won the Noma and Shogakukan Prizes and was selected for the IBBY Honour List in 1986. Eiko Kadono has also been a champion of reading and books for children and has been recognised for her contributions to children literature with the Medal with Purple Ribbon in 2000, and the Order of the Rising Sun – Gold Rays with Rosette in 2014. She was nominated for the Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2016.

HCAA Jury Comments:

Eiko Kadono is innovative, unique, fresh, sometimes haunting. Always memorable, this writer brings diverse approaches to books that address a wide variety of ages. Her playful language as in the lilting onomatopoeia in her picture books, her powerful, free-wheeling imagination, her humour and insight into children and young people’s feelings make her an author who combines exceptional literary quality with accessibility.