Bookstart.
Japan.
December 26th 2023
Bookstart Japan
3F Kakuta Building, 5-19 Shin Ogawamachi, Shinjyuku-ku, Tokyo, 162-0814, Japan
Create a society where every baby is spoken words of affection while sharing books and lives a happy life.
Izumi Satou
Project Manager of Global Networking
http://www.bookstart.or.jp
A national organisation set up for the purpose of running the programme.
15
Bookstart.
Japan.
2000
Create a society where every baby is spoken words of affection while sharing books and lives a happy life.
It depends on each local authority. They fund their programme with the budget from library service, family support, health service etc.
National. 60% of all local authorities run the programme with Bookstart Japan as of May 2019. It reaches about 80%, if other universal baby book-gifting programmes are included.
The programme is not for profit.
None.
Not consistent. Local authorities who wish to run Bookstart budget their programme and form a steering group consisting of library service, health department, family support department and local volunteers, etc, and design their programme. They consider the funding source, the target, the timing and at what opportunity Bookstart is held, who delivers the packs, the contents of the packs, how they deliver them, etc. Among local authorities, we have ‘Five important Points of Bookstart’ to share. 1. The aim (see above). 2. It is universal. 3. It is delivered at an opportunity where every baby born in the area is targeted, such as group health check or immunisation etc. 4. It values quality delivery, including demonstrating how to share books with babies. 5. It is run as a local public service in partnership with local departments and volunteers.
Each local authority considers the contents of the pack according to their budget. The pack contains at least one baby book and may include Bookstart Advice Booklet, Baby-book list, Library registration card, Local information on family support. They are packed in a cotton bag or a paper envelope. Each local authority chooses the title(s) of the baby book in the pack from ‘Bookstart Baby Books’ which are regularly selected by an independent book selection committee of Bookstart Japan. The support of publishers enables Bookstart Japan to provide those books to local authorities at a special price.
Yes.
It depends on who chairs the steering group in the local authority.
It depends on each local authority. In most programmes, librarians or/and volunteers hand-out the packs.
It depends on each local authority whether they use volunteers and what they do. In many programmes, they are a part of the steering group. They may be existing local reading-aloud group members, former childcare workers, children’s social worker and/or newly recruited and trained people for the programme. The local authority organises the training sessions for the volunteers, professionals and local government officials who are involved in the programme. Volunteers assemble the packs, prepare the venue, demonstrate sharing books while delivering packs to the families. They also organise baby rhyme time at local libraries and community centres as follow-up programmes of Bookstart.
Universal within the local authority which runs the programme.
About 500,000 babies in 2018.
It depends on each local authority. 96% of the programmes gift the packs before babies turn one year old.
We include special provisions for parents with special needs. We offer a braille/enlarged character version of ‘Bookstart Introduction Sheet’ and a braille version of ‘Bookstart Advice Booklet’ for visually impaired parents. We also offer baby books with braille for visually impaired parents to enjoy sharing books with their baby.
98% of the population in Japan speak Japanese and 2% speak other languages. ‘Bookstart Introduction Sheet’ is available in 11 languages and explains the programme and about sharing books with babies. (Chinese, English, Hindi, Indonesian, Korean, Nepali, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Tagalog and Vietnamese – popular languages spoken by foreign residents in Japan); ‘Bookstart Advice Booklet’ is available in 8 languages (Chinese, English, Korean, Portuguese, Spanish, Thai, Tagalog and Vietnamese). We have also produced ‘Baby Book Contents Introduction Sheet’ for each title in the pack which explains the contents of the books and how to pronounce the Japanese writing. It is available in the same 8 languages as above.
We researched the pilot study in 2000. We conducted another research in 2011-2012 and published “Research report on what Bookstart brings about” in 2014. It is only available in Japanese.
