These two delightful books are both bilingual, reasonably priced and suitable to give as presents. Adults would enjoy them, but they will appeal especially to children.
"The Tale of the Bamboo Cutter," or "Taketori Monogatari," is not only Japan's oldest tale, but also its most frequently retold and perennially attractive. As Donald Keene observes in the preface to the story, its origins go back over 1,000 years, and its author is unknown. The version of the tale that he translates, in this soft-bound boxed edition, is a retelling by the novelist Kawabata Yasunari, Japan's first Nobel laureate in literature.
The tale is sometimes also known as "Kaguya-hime," or "The Shining Princess," after the name of its protagonist. It tells of an extraterrestrial princess of great beauty, who refuses all her earthly suitors before returning to her home on the moon. She is discovered one day as a child by the bamboo cutter, her tiny form resting in a hollow stalk of bamboo. Thinking her abandoned, he takes her home, and he and his wife raise her as their own. This brings riches and good fortune to her newfound parents and her beauty wins renown.