きみの存在を意識する（読みもの）
Sensing Your Presence
カテゴリー: Japanese Children's Books、おすすめ！日本の子どもの本、読みもの／chapter books and novels
『きみの 存在を 意識する』（Kimi no sonzai o ishiki suru）
中学2 年生の5 人の語りで展開する短編連作。そのモノローグから、ひとりひとりが抱えている、外からは見えにくい悩みや葛藤が語られ、それらがからみあって登場人物たちのデリケートな内面や友だちへの想いなどが鮮やかに浮かび上がってくる。ひすいと拓真（たくま）は同い年の姉弟。読書指導に情熱を燃やす担任の女教師は、読んだ本の読書記録カードの枚数を競わせる。
拓真はむずかしい本もスラスラ読めるのだが、ひすいは教科書を読むのも苦手。それなのに先生は、ひすいが本好きの優等生だと思い込んでいるから悩ましい。男にも女にも分けられるのを嫌い、自分は自分だと毅然としている少女の理幹（りき）は、プライバシーと読書の秘密を守りたいと、カードの提出をかたくなに拒み、担任と対立する。拓真は、両親と死別して養育里親の養子として、ひすいの家族になっているのだが、産みの母親らしい人が現れ困惑する。理幹はサマーキャンプでたまたま拓真と一緒になり、なんとなく気が合って拓真の悩みに寄り添う。文字を書くのが苦手な心桜（こはる）は、自分が「書字の障害」だといってもだれも真剣に受け止めてくれないまま転校する。優等生を演じ切りたい学級委員長で過食気味の小晴（こはる）と、化学物質アレルギーをなかなか理解してもらえない留美奈（るみな）の特異な交流。さまざまな負荷を抱えた中学生たちが、それぞれの存在を意識しながら古い価値観とあらがい葛藤する姿が克明に描かれ心を打つ。（野上）
| 出版社 | ポプラ社 |
|---|---|
| 初版年 | 2019年 |
| ISBN | 9784- 591163566 |
| ページ数 | 336頁 |
| サイズ | 20×13 |
| 対象年齢 | 13歳から |
| キーワード | 読書 家族 友だち 障害 |
Sensing Your Presence
A collection of linked short stories each narrated by one of five friends in Year 2 of the same junior high school. Their monologues, in which they speak of their hidden troubles and conflicts, intertwine to vividly reveal the delicate inner lives of the protagonists and their feelings for their friends. Hisui and Takuma are sister and brother in the same year. Their homeroom teacher is passionate about teaching reading and makes her class compete for the number of reading record cards on the books they read.
Takuma sails through even difficult books, but Hisui is so bad at it that she can’t even get through text books. Even so, the teacher seems to think she is a top student who loves reading, and this makes her anxious. Meanwhile Riki hates boys and girls being segregated and is determined that people should be themselves. She refuses to hand in her reading record cards as she feels it infringes upon her privacy, and she openly confronts the homeroom teacher over the issue. Takuma was adopted by Hisui’s family after he lost his own parents, and he is confused when a woman resembling his birth mother appears. Riki happens to get together with Takuma at summer camp, and somehow they get along well and she shares his troubles. Koharu, the class president who tends to overeat and makes out he’s a straight A student, and Rumina, who nobody can understand has a chemical allergy, make an odd pair. Each of the five have their own various burdens, and they struggle against old values while being aware of each other’s existence. The words of another student called Koharu, who has moved from another school and has a reading and writing disability that nobody understands, leave a particularly strong impression: “Hey, you all, don’t die! Ke p on living, okay?” (Nogami)
- Nashiya, Arie
- Poplar
- 2019
- 336 pages
- 20×13
- ISBN 9784- 591163566
- Ages 13 +
Reading, Family, Friends, Disability