Book 6 "The Night of the Milky Way Train"

Title: The Night of the Milky Way Train
Author: Kenji Miyazawa (translated by Yoko Toyozaki and Stuart Varnam-Atkin)
Publisher (level): IBC Publishing (2)
Summary:
I doubted at first how an air of fantasy in Kenji’s stories would be expressed in English, not in mother tongue. However, I started to read once, I felt on cloud nine at the dreamy and beautiful tale. The hero of this story, Giovanni is poor and teased about that by his classmates. Nonetheless, His chum, Campanella has spent good times with him really friendly. One day, the “star festival” day came. Many children go to a river to float their lantern, but Giovanni can’t do that because he was not able to prepare his lantern of poverty. On the way to a farm to get milk for his ill mother, he met some classmates and Campanella heading to a river. As usual classmates made fun of him, but at that time, even Campanella were laughing and didn’t speak up for him! Therefore, he ran away and reached the top of a hill. He cried silently there. At that time, a wonderful train came though there was no rail. He rode on the train, moreover Campanella also came. So, they began to go on a trip on the Milky Way Train! They enjoy many strange things on Milky Way, for instance, electric squirrels, golden apples, and a bird like a sugar. Giovanni feel happy being with Campanella, and says, “Let’s go on together, wherever, for ever and ever!” However, his trip came to the end suddenly. Campanella disappeared from the train after the moment he said, “there is my mother!” Giovanni cried again, and noticed that he lay on the hill alone. So, he was dreaming. But the story doesn’t end at this, end with a sorrow fact…
Evaluation: 5stars
The stage of this story is the Milky Way. Many imaginative things appear, and I like the eighth chapter “ The Bird-Catcher” especially. The bird-catcher’s work is to catch geese, snow herons, and cranes. Those birds melt down if they weren’t caught before landing on the Milky Way, and they tastes sweet and better than chocolate. Such beautiful and fantastic episode adds more brilliance to this story with a little sadness.