The Secret of the Blue Glass

by Tomiko Inui, Ginny Tapley Takemori (Translator)

Overview

On the first floor of the big house of the Moriyama family, is a small library. There, on the shelves next to the old books, live the Little People, a tiny family who were once brought from England to Japan by a beloved nanny. Since then, each generation of Moriyama-family children has inherited the responsibility of filling the blue glass with milk to feed the Little People and it's now Yuri's turn. 
The little girl dutifully fulfils her task but the world around the Moriyama family is changing. Japan is caught in the whirl of what will soon become World War II, turning her beloved older brother into a fanatic nationalist and dividing the family for ever. Sheltered in the garden and the house, Yuri is able to keep the Little People safe, and they do their best to comfort Yuri in return, until one day owing to food restrictions milk is in shorter supply...

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781782695035
Publisher:	Steerforth Press
Publication date:	06/30/2026
Series:	Pushkin Children's Classics
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	5.06(w) x 7.81(h) x (d)
Age Range:	12 - 14 Years

About the Author

Born in Tokyo in 1924, Tomiko Inui joined a publishing house in 1950, where she began working as an editor, as well as writing books for children. She published many books over her long career, winning prizes along the way including the Mainishi Publishing Culture Award and the Akaitori Award for Children's Literature. The Secret of the Blue Glass is the first of her books to be translated into English. She died in 2002. 
Translated from the Japanese by Ginny Tapley Takemori.

Read an Excerpt

Everyone has their own special place, a place somewhere on Earth that is theirs and theirs alone—a magical place wherein dwell those important to them, those they love the most.

One such special place was a small valley amidst the sand dunes of the Sahara Desert, a magical setting out of bounds to anyone other than the person who created it, a little prince from an asteroid, a rose and a fox.

Another special place was the delightful riverbank shim- mering with the silvery undersides of willow leaves where, far from the dusty world of humans, a small water rat had made his spotless home and a faddish toad had his grand hall—and where, one summer’s night just before dawn, the water rat and his friend the mole heard the clear strains of a piper, and found themselves drawn along the river by the beauty of the music ultimately to encounter the luminous figure of Pan in the hush of daybreak.

My special place is a house built in the shade of a large zelkova tree, and home to a big boy, a younger boy and a very small girl of about five or six. The garden is a riot of fruit trees, apricots and chestnuts and figs and cherries.

On clear summer days when the afternoon sun floods the lawn with light, the children take out the hosepipe sprinkler to spray the lawn, and frolic about noisily under the shower of water. The boys are wearing black shorts and the girl a yellow swimsuit her mother made for her. Small rainbows dance over the green turf as the water sprays all around.

My younger self slips out of the house next door and sneaks into the garden. The older middle-school boy and the little girl wave to me in welcome, but the more reserved younger boy scowls. I suck in my breath, and charge into the spray of water. Oh, the wonder of a cold shower under the dazzling sun on a hot day! Intoxicated by summer, we roll around the lawn like young braves. The fragrance of wet grass, the sweet smell of damp earth… Finally the smaller boy pounces on me like a young bear and we start wrestling with all our might. The little girl’s eyes glitter merrily as an imp’s as she watches us, her happy laugh ringing high up in the branches of the big tree.

After a while the sky darkens and a real afternoon shower comes along, putting an end to our play. A loud clap of thunder rumbles through the sky, and the little girl and her two elder brothers vanish into the darkness. And so does my younger self.

It is always midsummer in my special place.

At times, little scamp that I am, I am up in the white fig tree in the girl’s garden. Playing the part of a robber, I clamber over our cypress hedge, climb the tree and move from one fruit to the next, milky-white sap seeping from the stalks as I pick them, devouring them greedily as I go. The air is filled with the fragrance of the fig leaves.

The little girl comes out of her quaint Western-style house. Oh no! I hide my face under the big leaves, but she makes a beeline for the tree and politely calls up, “Pick one for me too!” The fearless robber is instantly transformed into an angel descended from heaven to pick a fig.

“Thank you!” she says gratefully and, skipping over the short shadows, goes back into the house.

My mind full of the girl with a slim neck and beads of sweat on her nose, I sit on my fig branch drawing a castle in the blue sky, a daydream castle where one day the girl and I will live together. As the big summer thunderclouds amass and begin to tower high, so too my castle spreads throughout the boundless blue sky.

In my own special place there is no little prince from a distant star, nor a pleasant riverbank from where sound the clear strains of Pan’s pipes. My special place is the house in Tokyo where I was born and grew up, which was destroyed in an air raid during the war. I can still recall how, when I joined the mass evacua- tion of primary school children leaving for the countryside, I kept looking back at it longingly over my shoulder as I was led away. No trace remains of that house now, nor of the house in the shade of the big zelkova tree next door. And I’ll probably never again get to meet that little imp of a girl who lived there. Or so I believed for over ten years, until one day I ran into an old friend by chance on the train and he happened to men- tion her to me. “She still remembers you, you know. She said she sometimes wishes she could meet up with that boy next door who was so good at the high bar. She sounded really quite wistful.”

I was speechless. Paying me no heed, my friend went on, “It really took me back, talking about our childhood days with her. Although she didn’t say much, really. She’d probably have talked more if you’d been there. She always did seem to like you better than me.” As a boy he had always been kind, if a bit tactless, and he hadn’t changed in that respect. “Why don’t you pay her a visit? This is where she said she’s staying.” He wrote an address on a scrap of paper and passed it to me.

He seemed to want to carry on reminiscing and if I’m honest, I did want to hear more about what the girl was doing now. However, I just couldn’t bear the thought of someone else barging in on my special place, and so I took my leave of him. As I made my way home, I ripped up the scrap of paper he’d given to me into little pieces. I wanted to remain for ever the lively, wild boy doing endless spins up on the high bar the way she remembered me! And I wanted her always to be the little imp of a girl in my special place.

The tiny shreds of paper scattered in the breeze.

A few months later, I came across a small package in the mail at work one morning. As I turned it over to see the name of the sender, thinking it must be a submission from a reader, my hands started shaking. Written there in blue Magic Marker was: “Yuri Moriyama”, the name of the little girl in my special place.


I tore into the package, opened the large notebook and started reading. That little girl next door had had an altogether more magical place of her own! I felt I was being shown another, hitherto hidden, dimension to my own special place as I was drawn into her story.

Table of Contents

Prelude 7
The Little Book Room 12
The Two Men 25
A Fairy Story 37
Yahei the Pigeon, Robin and the Tiger 50
Acorns Aren’t from Zelkova Trees! 59
Farewell, Little Book Room! 70
The House in the Mountains 86
A Day of Grass-cutting 100
A New Friend 110
The First Snow 118
Yahei and Amanejakki 127
The Last of the Milk 136
The Little People Go Away 147
At Amanejakki’s 151
Come Home, Little People! 161
Dark Days 169
Yuri Goes Home 178

Editorial Reviews

'I love this book.' - Michael Morpurgo, Guardian

'[The book] has a sensibility and a poetry of its own.' - Independent on Sunday

'A tender and beautifully written story full of adventure, hardship and cultural revelations.' - Lancashire Evening Post

'A glorious fantasy story... utterly captivating.' - Read it Daddy

'A terrific story of courage, loyalty and love.' - Books for Keeps

'The English translation has been a long but worthwhile wait... reminding us that children's literature can both address adult concerns and provide alternatives to our failings.' - Japan Times, Books of the Year

'An extraordinary book... elements of the work of Oscar Wilde and Hans Christian Andersen.' - The School Librarian

'A terrific story of love and courage in the face of change and adversity as well as a gripping fantasy read.' - South China Morning Post

'A unique and valuable read.' - Lines from the Horizon

From the Publisher

★ 2019-04-22
A young girl carefully keeps a magical secret during World War II.

Before she left Japan to return home to England in 1913, Tatsuo Moriyama's teacher entrusted him with care of the Little People, instructing him to give them a secret place to live and provide them with milk daily in their special blue crystal glass. Each generation of the Moriyama children has in turn taken on responsibility for filling the blue glass. Now it is Yuri's chance to look after Balbo and Fern and their children, Robin and Iris. For years a bookshelf in the Moriyama house has been a hidden refuge, but radical changes are underway with the onset of World War II. Evacuated for safety to a remote rural area, Yuri does her best to care for the Little People, but as food becomes scarce, their situation takes a turn for the worst. Originally published in Japan in 1967, this is a powerful mix of fantasy and historical fiction depicting the impact of war on civilians—children in particular—and offering insights into the Japanese experience of the Second World War. Although filled with lovely imagery and charming descriptions, for example, of the Little People's ingenuity with scavenged objects and their friendship with a helpful pigeon, there is ample drama and anguish as well.

A child's goodness in difficult times animates this touching story for fans of The Borrowers and the Chronicles of Narnia. (Historical fantasy. 10-14)

Kirkus Reviews