“Homer Price（1943）” (Iwanami Shoten, Publishers. 1951)
Author and illustrator: Robert McCloskey
Translator: Momoko Ishii
I loved the cover with Homer eating donuts surrounded by tons of them in production. When I was a child, donuts were a rare treat, and it seems like a dream for children to be able to eat as many sweets as they want (like “Hansel and Gretel”).
I think I was also attracted by the liveliness and dynamism of the illustrations.
Perhaps people who want to immigrate to America also have similar feelings.
Reading this book now, it’s a book with a strong sense of America; coffee shops, donuts, heroes, wide-open suburbs, farms, and automobiles.
Homer’s free and carefree story was published in 1943, during World War II. (My surprise is similar to when I heard that the movie “Casablanca” was made in 1942.)
As a child, I didn’t even understand the meaning that the translator was Momoko Ishii (although I had read her book “Non-chan’s Riding the Clouds”, which was recommended to me by my mother).
(Finish reading: 2023.10.20)
※Homer’s town: Suburbs of Centerburg, Ohio (from Google Map)
