"Friends" is an Ehon story book(The illustrated story, for children before or under 10 years old, revolves around the sincere friendship of Brown Bear and Black Cat, who met after Brown Bear got lost on a picnic with Mai's family. The Vietnamese version of "Friends" was first published in Vietnam by Kim Dong Publishing House in 2020.
After the book was copyrighted and published in Vietnam, famous writer Aihara Hiroyuki expressed his wish to have Vietnamese artists illustrate his work when it was published in Japan.
"Friends" Vietnamese version (left) and Japanese version (right).
"The artist Dot Dot has expressed my feelings through wonderful paintings. I really like her paintings and hope you do too," Aihara Hiroyuki shared.
In the “Letter to Readers” printed in this edition, writer Aihara Hiroyuki said that Vietnam is a beautiful country with optimistic and warm people. He expressed: "As a Japanese, I wish to become friends with Vietnamese readers, and then travel together to explore Vietnam's nature like the two main characters Brown Bear and Black Cat in this story."
"Do you see the image of the Japanese through the calm Brown Bear and the image of the Vietnamese in the brave Mun Cat? From a chance encounter, through the journey, the two gradually understood, helped each other, and finally trusted each other absolutely. I would be very happy if in the future, children of the two countries also have such a strong bond with each other, the bond of friends".
Artist Dot Dot illustrated the story "Friends".
Dom Dom is the pen name of Vu Thuy Ngoc Ha - a young artist specializing in illustrating children's books and comics. She won the first prize of the 2019 Scholastic Picture Book Award with her work "The Girl on the Roof and the Boy on the Beach". This book was also recently published by Scholastic - a publishing group over 100 years old based in the US - in 2021.
