Japanese Textbooks

I've noticed recently that the content in Japanese English textbooks is sometimes quite different from the content of American foreign language textbooks. It's mostly the reading assignments. For example, one of the short stories in the second year textbook begins,

"'Why did my grandmother die? I want to die, too,' cried a boy of fourteen. 'I hate my father and mother.' The sun was bright in a blue sky. But the boy could not see it, because he was blind."

Cheerful, huh? It gets even better. The next lesson I'll be working on with the third years is a reading assignment called, "A Mother's Lullaby". Because I don't even know how to begin to describe it, I'm just going to transcribe the whole damn thing.

"A big, old tree stands by a road near the city of Hiroshima. Through the years, it has seen many things.

One summer night the tree heard a lullaby. A mother was singing to her little girl under the tree. They looked happy, and the song sounded sweet. But the tree remembered something sad.

'Yes, it was some sixty years ago. I heard a lullaby that night, too.' On the morning of that day, a big bomb fell on the city of Hiroshima. Many people lost their lives, and many others were injured. They had burns all over their bodies. I was very sad when I saw those people.

It was a very hot day. Some of the people fell down near me. I said to them, 'Come and rest in my shade. You'll be all right soon.'

Night came. Some people were already dead. I heard a weak voice. It was a lullaby. A young girl was singing to a little boy. 'Mommy! Mommy!' the boy cried. 'Don't cry,' the girl said. 'Mommy is here.' Then she began to sing again.

She was very weak, but she tried to be a mother to the poor little boy. She held him in her arms like a real mother. 'Mommy,' the boy was still crying. 'Be a good boy,' said the girl. 'You'll be all right.' She held the boy more tightly and began to sing again.

After a while the little boy stopped crying and quietly died. But the little mother did not stop singing. It was a sad lullaby. The girl's voice became weaker and weaker.

Morning came and the sun rose, but the girl never moved again."

Just... wow. And the assignment the teacher came up with for this lesson is for the students to translate it into Japanese. My role is to walk around and help the students look things up in dictionaries. I bet we'll have a fun time when we get to, "They had burns all over their bodies." I think I prefer American textbooks to Japanese ones, at this point.