A touching story about an old witch, her cat, and a bowl full of singing shijimi clams.
Imagine preparing miso soup and, just as you are ready to add the clams, you discover them softly sleeping in their shells. Would you be able to toss the clams into the pot?
The old and not so feisty witch of Singing Shijimi Clams could not bring herself to cook the sleeping clams. Instead, she would wait until the next evening to cook the clams, and, in the meantime, eat her clamless miso soup.
The next evening, however, the old witch could not bring herself to cook the still sleeping clams. “I’ll do it,” said her old and sometimes grumpy cat. But the cat, after he peered down into the bowl of softly sleeping shijimi clams, could not add the clams to the miso soup.
Later that same night, the witch and her cat woke to the sound of little voices. The clams were finally awake, and scared. They began to cry when the witch told them that they were no longer in a river or sea but in the witch’s home.
The witch and her cat took pity on the clams. She promised to take them to their watery home by train. The only problem was that the witch did not have enough money to buy a train ticket for herself, her cat, and each of the clams.
Together the witch, her cat, and the bowl of shijimi clams would have to raise money to buy the train tickets.
Singing Shijimi Clams by Naomi Kojima (Kane / Miller Book Publishers, ISBN 1-933605-12-X) is both a touching and calming story. In it we find friendship, caring, and empathy for others. For these reasons, Singing Shijimi Clams is a great book for teachers and parents to open up discussions about helping others. It is also a gentle bedtime story with the imagined soothing bubbling and beautiful singing of the shijimi clams.
