I was seven when my parents signed me up for the Calling All Girls Book Club so I would have books in English to read when the Air Force sent my family to Honduras. The Cheerful Heart was one of the books I received. Alas, I 68 now and have arthritis in one ankle, which I turned last week. I can't fetch my copy.

Tomi Tamaki and what's left of her family (elder sister killed, elder brother missing and presumed dead), are trying to get their lives back after the end of World War II. Their original home was bombed out. Japanese regulations regarding resources permit only a small house to be built. Tomi, her parents, her grandmother, and her little brother (most precious to the family with elder brother gone), must crowd into it somehow.

I read the book many times. It taught me something about both the human spirit and Japanese culture. I still remember the saying, "bee sting on a crying face" for a misfortune that follows an earlier misfortune - not unlike our "adding insult to injury".

Yes, we have a custom of "hostess gifts" for visits or going to a dinner party, but imagine having to give a gift just for visiting someone else's house. The family loses one of its surviving treasures because of such a visit, but they would be shamed if they were like a visitor to their house who had brought only dried squid.

I learned about various festivals. The one where little figures of teru teru bōzu, the priest who makes the sun shine, are tied to trees in the hope of good weather helped me decades later, when I ordered a Tetsuwan Atomu [Astro Boy] calendar. The famous robot, his sister, Uran [Astro Girl], and Prof. Ochanomizu [Dr. Elefun] visit different planets. One of them is the rain planet. Uran carries a little teru teru bōzu as they slog through the water. I explained it to a fellow anime fan.

I think it was at New Year that they played a card game where famous poems are split and printed on two cards. The object of the game is to find the other halves of one's cards. Tomi is growing up because she suspects something about what her dad does during the game every year.

One of the incidents in the book is when Mr. Tamaki, who works with an American man, tells the family that the American finds the meaning of their family name [jewel tree] funny. He tells them what the American's surname means in Japanese. The family roars with laughter until their sides ache, and Mrs. Tamaki sets them off again with a joke about it.

Tomi is given a bicycle to help her run errands. The bicycle gets stolen. The family gets a black puppy with big feet to grow up and be their watchdog.

Winters in Japan had to be suffered without the benefit of central heating units. Poor Tomi's hands are so full of chilblains that she can hardly hold her brush to write during lessons. Imagine having a hibachi pot of coals under the table and tucking a quilt around one's lower body to try to stay warm.

I learned about netsuke, those carved ornaments used as toggles on the obi, or sash, of a kimono, from what happens when Tomi finds her bicycle at a shop, but the shopkeeper can't afford to just give it back. He bought it in good faith. An American woman would pay a good price for a girl child's kimono for her granddaughter. Must elder sister's childhood festival kimono be lost in order to get the bicycle back?

At last the Tamaki family have permission to make their house bigger. Tomi is rejoicing in finally having her own room, however small, when something unexpected happens.

This is a very good book for children and adults alike. We all need to experience other cultures. ( )