お蚕さんから糸と綿と（NF写真絵本）
Thread and Silk from Silkworms
カテゴリー: Japanese Children's Books、おすすめ！日本の子どもの本、絵本／picture books、ノンフィクション／nonfiction
『お蚕さんから 糸と綿と』（Okaiko-san kara ito to wata to）
滋賀有数の養蚕地だった集落に、一軒だけ残る養蚕農家に密着取材した写真絵本。桑を栽培し、蚕を育て、繭をとる養蚕は、手間暇かけた一家総出の仕事だ。その繭を煮、人の手で生糸や真綿にしていく。かつて養蚕や製糸の仕事は日本の主要産業だった。老人の表情や手、「お蚕さん」と敬称をつけて呼ばれながら命を絶たれる虫たちの写真は厳かで、自然に近い人間の生活の営みや、人が多数の命を身につけていることを考えさせる。犠牲になった命に対する「虫供養」と、繭から逃げ出した飛べない蛾の写真が、深い余韻を残す。（広松）
| 出版社 | アリス館 |
|---|---|
| 初版年 | 2020年 |
| ISBN | 9784752009252 |
| ページ数 | 52頁 |
| サイズ | 26×20 |
| 対象年齢 | 9歳から |
| キーワード | 養蚕 製糸 生命 |
Thread and Silk from Silkworms
This photographic picture book is an in-depth look at the only couple still engaged in sericulture in an area of Japan that used to be a leading sericulture center. It is a labor-intensive process which involves growing and tending mulberry trees, supplying silkworms with mulberry leaves, collecting the cocoons, and drying them just before the chrysalis turns into a moth and breaks free. The cocoons are boiled and then made into raw silk and floss silk by hand. In the past, sericulture and silk reeling were a major industry in Japan, but today it is very rare to see the process. Awe-inspiring photos convey the elderly farmers’ expressions and the movement of their hands, as well as the nature of the silkworms which, although addressed with the honorific of Okaiko-san (Honorable Mr. Silkworm), are sacrificed to make silk. The reader gains deep insight into the activities that support the lives of those who live close to nature and a realization that we garb ourselves in the lives of countless creatures. The book closes with images of a Buddhist mass for the repose of silkworms that have sacrificed their lives and of a moth that although it has escaped from a cocoon, cannot fly, leaving the reader to ponder the meaning of life. (Hiromatsu)
- text/photos: Onishi, Nobuo
- Alice-kan
- 2020
- 52 pages
- 26×20
- ISBN 9784752009252
- Ages 9 +
Silkworms, Silk making, Life