Wearing my Sato Glasses 24/7: How Enchanted Lion Brought Magic
into my 20-Year-Old Life

Ever since the fall of 2021, my life has been magical. Like Sato the Rabbit (from the Sato the Rabbit trilogy) turns what other people might find boring or mundane into the most fantastically vivid, imagination wonders, I too have been dancing in a world of laundry hanging on a clothesline turning into ships sailing in a sea of grass. A world of snacking on the crisp, cool moon, throwing a rain party and decorating by tying rain with ribbons, and pulling the moon’s reflection out of the water and hanging it to dry to later sleep under it as a moon blanket. From fall to now, I have been going to classes and walking around campus and falling asleep with my Sato Glasses on.

Sato the Rabbit

Sato the Rabbit is a trilogy of stories about a boy-turned-rabbit translated from Japanese into English, all published by the independent Brooklyn-based children’s book publisher, Enchanted Lion, which was founded by Claudia Bedrick, her father and mother Peter and Muriel, and her younger sister Abigail. After publishing their first list in spring 2003, Enchanted Lion has “grown in terms of people and in the number and diversity of the original books [they] do in addition to the books in translation,” according to Claudia, as they have published over 100 books in translation. As it says on their website, their books “inspire curiosity, awareness, and wonder in children everywhere.” I have found that reading Enchanted Lion’s books goes beyond inspiring just children, being a 20-year-old who keeps my Sato Glasses on my face.

Sato the Rabbit

Unlike many of the children’s books with which I grew up, the illustrated books from around the world published by Enchanted Lion go beyond borders and pop the bubble in which I have been nestled since childhood. The meticulously crafted words and each brushstroke of illustrations become a passport for me and other readers to travel the world. Their books represent authors and illustrators from Australia, Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Finland, France, the Netherlands, New Zealand, Japan, Switzerland, the US, and many more regions of the world. Reading the publisher's website about the multiple options of books that they offer, I learned that they “travel out into northwest Pakistan, China during the Cultural Revolution, and the Levantine world during the golden age of Arab science.”

Enchanted Lion’s books are meaningful to both readers and the publishing team alike. Claudia tells me that they live with the books “anywhere from a year or two to eight or ten” before they go to press. Their website says they “sleep with many books under [their] pillows, and [they] publish the ones that invade [their] dreams.” Their biggest, most popular titles have been Bear and World, The Forest, Enormous Smallness, Seasons, and the Chirri & Chirra books.

I have read and reviewed ten of Enchanted Lion’s books for the Outside in World website (although there’s definitely more to come!):

Almost Nothing, Yet Everything (translated from Japanese)
One Day (translated from Korean)
Coffee Rabbit Snowdrop Lost (translated from Danish)
Chirri & Chirra: The Rainy Day (translated from Japanese)
How War Changed Rondo (translated from Ukrainian)
The Most Beautiful Story (translated from Norwegian)
Sato the Rabbit (translated from Japanese)
Sato the Rabbit: The Moon (translated from Japanese)
Telephone Tales (translated from Italian)
The Three Water Drop Brothers (translated from Korean)

I wore my Sato Glasses when reading one of the Chirri & Chirra books (The Rainy Day), so the next time it rained I imagined the world turning upside down and balloon-sized gummy gumdrops floating in my periphery.

 Chirri & Chirra: The Rainy Day

Not surprisingly, three of these books—Coffee Rabbit Snowdrop Lost, The Most Beautiful Story, and Sato the Rabbit—ones that I would say are my favourites, although they pretty much are all my favourites—actually received Batchelder Honors at the 2022 American Library Association Youth Media Awards. How timely for writing this article!

On the subject of rewards, being able to read these books has been the most satisfying pleasure for me. That in itself is a reward. As an intern for Outside in World out of New York, I have had the absolute joy of getting to be able to read a lot of Enchanted Lion’s books due to my proximity to the publisher’s location in the States. I originally took an interest in translated literature in my sophomore year of college when I discovered that I wanted to use reading as a way to become more in tune with the world. As an intern for Open Letter Books (one of the first US publishers that put out only works of translation) out of the University of Rochester in summer 2021, publisher Chad Post connected me with Outside in World due to my particular interest in children’s literature.

Almost Nothing, Yet Everything

Children’s literature in translation means a lot to me as an aspiring educator who dreams of producing a classroom of open-minded, empathetic children who gleam with wonder at the world around them. Children who respect and celebrate cultures other than their own. Children who love reading and see books as a passport into new worlds and even after closing the book let what they read resonate with them and remain in their eyes as a reminder of new perspectives they experienced with words and pictures.

One Day

At Open Letter, I produced a mini booklet that features twelve recent works of children’s books in translation. I didn’t know at that time that one of those books, Telephone Tales, was in fact published by Enchanted Lion. Telephone Tales is without a doubt a fan favourite, as it won the 2020 Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs’ English Translation Prize and the 2021 Mildred L. Batchelder Award. It is also a classic, as it was written by Italian author Gianni Rodari (1920-1980) in 1962, and it is still revered to this day because of its mini bedtime stories that are said to have been told over a short payphone call. Telephone Tales was one of my favourites to read both because this was my first exposure to Enchanted Lion and also because the stories are just so silly and lovely in a way that a child would think about life.

Telephone Tales

Claudia muses about Enchanted Lion. “Enchanted Lion has been a deep, large part of my life for 19 years. It is the medium of my life, as is my family. It’s what I live.”

Ever since the fall of 2021, I have become aware that just like Enchanted Lion’s books are a big part of Claudia’s life, they have also become a big part of my life. As my first real, in-depth exposure to children’s literature in translation, these books will resonate with me forever as I continue to read this medium of work. I will wear my Sato Glasses 24/7.

Catherine Hurwitz
(February 2022)

For further information about Enchanted Lion Books and their books visit their website.