Claytonian Wrote a Children's Book? Introducing: Green Zombie Green Zombie What Do You See?

Everyone probably remembers Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What Do You See? This book, which I made in Adobe Illustrator, is a send up of Brown Bear that is designed to be both spooky and educational. I use it to teach at an international preschool here in Japan, so the focus was on vocabulary and Halloween fun. It was a hit when I read it this morning from my Android Tablet; the kids made me read it twice!

View Green Zombie Green Zombie What Do You See? here.

A couple notes:
Unlike the original books, "looking at me" is not the verbage used in this book, but you can use it when you narrate to children if you don't like the verbs/pace I chose.

Rokurokubi is a Japanese monster. You may need to practice saying the name out loud. Ghoul is an Arabic monster, and it just means basically monster, goblin, or boggart in my mind.

I may add to this book next year (rainbow blobs, anyone?) as well as find a technical way to emulate brush strokes like the original book has. So check back next October too!

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Spinning Hammer Mouse Shrine

What's going on with the mouse in the video? I read a description at the shrine, but it didn't seem too clear as I have a loose grasp of ancient Japanese mythology. Luckily this site has some info about why the gods Susano-O and O-Kuni-Nushi were being mentioned so much and what was up with the arrow the mouse found. Read on:

Traditions have O-Kuni-Nushi being sent straight to the underworld after his brothers tried to kill him in order to avoid their revenge. In the underworld O-Kuni-Nushi met Suseri-Hime, the daughter of the god of the underworld. They were married, but first Susano-O made O-Kuni-Nushi pass three tests. The first test was to put him to sleep in a room of snakes. O-Kuni-Nushi saves himself with the scarf that Suseri-Hime gave him. The next night he had to sleep in a room full of centipedes and wasps, but he again used another scarf that Suseri-Hime had given him to protect himself. The final test that Susano-O gives him is to find an arrow, which Susano-O had sent into the middle of a huge meadow. When O-Kuni-Nushi is in the middle of the field, Susano-O set fire to the grass, luckily however; a mouse saves him by showing him an underground room. The mouse then brings the arrow to O-Kuni-Nushi. O-Kuni-Nushi's success helps Susano-O to feel more at ease with him, so he has O-Kuni-Nushi wash his hair and finally goes to sleep. O-Kuni-Nushi then ties Susano-O's hair to the rafters of the house and with his wife on his back fled. He also took with him Susano-O's sword, bow, arrows, and his Koto (harp). Susano-O is awakened when the Koto brushes against a tree. In the time it took for Susano-O to free his hair, the two were far away. From the slopes of the underworld, Susano-O advises O-Kuni-Nushi, whom he sees in the distance, to use the weapons to fight his brothers, foretelling that O-Kuni-Nushi would conquer them and reign over the world. He also asked O-Kuni-Nushi to make Suseri-Hime his main wife and to build a palace at the foot of Mount Uka.

But heck if I know why those mice are holding hammers at the shrine. I also don't know if mention of a main wife alludes to Heian polygamy practices (it's good to be the kizoku !), when I imagine these stories may have been collected. Any ideas, Dear Reader?

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