Warmer Than the Sun Reviewed in Japan on July 2, 2025 Format: Kindle Edition Verified Purchase When my 7-year-old daughter goes to school, I always send her off by saying, “Try to find something fun, something exciting, something that makes you happy.” But every day doesn’t go smoothly. (She often says she doesn’t want to look for fun things — before that, her feeling of not wanting to go to school is much stronger.) After reading this picture book, she resonated with phrases like “You don’t have to rush” and “It’s okay to go slowly.” She said, “Me too,” and through the book, she told me about things she still can’t do. Things that hadn’t come out easily even when I asked her directly finally surfaced through this story, and I was really glad about that. I believe that my daughter was able to look at herself from “a slightly higher place” and, through the main character Yuu, reflect on what she can do and what she can’t yet do. It’s an adventure of finding the “me” that lies deep inside, again and again. When you hear the word “metacognition,” it can sound difficult, but in picture book form, you can feel it, empathize with it, and meet many versions of yourself — and begin to accept them. There’s no need to think about it in a complicated way. Just feel it, and express it in any form you like: with words, with drawings, with sounds. The Opal-Colored Forest makes you feel that way. You pick up little sparkling pieces scattered around, gather them together, and they grow larger, letting light flow into your heart. When you accept yourself and say, “This is okay,” the color of that light changes again. At first, you look at yourself from “a slightly higher place” and reflect — not focusing only on what you can’t do, but accepting even that part of yourself and gently embracing it. And then, that baton is passed on to the next generation.

My heart and the way I live have become lighter. Reviewed in Japan on December 22, 2025 Format: Kindle Edition The way I think about myself and the way I feel about myself has changed in many ways. After reading this book, my way of living became much easier, and I started to feel happiness more often. Thank you.

recommend reading this together with the book’s description. Reviewed in Japan on July 4, 2025 Format: Kindle Edition | Verified Purchase The gentle tone of the story felt like it slowly and softly soaked into my heart. If you can develop this kind of sensibility before becoming an adult, you may become kinder to yourself and to others as well. And perhaps you may be able to live a little more easily than you do now. I feel this is a book I will return to from time to time.