ZOOM TALK on SCBWI (Society of Children’s Book Writers International)
March 22, 2024
Report by Rebecca Otowa

Lisa Wilcut and covers of the original book and her translations

Last night I joined 25 people from around the world, mostly Japan, to hear WiK member Lisa Wilcut talk under the title of “What it Takes to Bring a Picture Book to Life in Another Language”, about her translation of Akira wa Akete Ageru, a children’s book by Shinsuke Yoshitaka. Members will recognize Lisa from her able handling of Zoom talks in WiK, but she has many other strings to her bow, as evidenced by this talk.

Yoshitaka’s work, especially his cute illustration technique, is familiar to readers in Japan. Lisa’s translation is in both UK and US versions, and the US version – I Can Open It for You – was the subject of this talk, which focused on the translation of Japanese onomatopoeic words into English.

This is the charming story of a little boy who has to ask his mother and father to open packets and bottles for him, and dreams of a day when he is bigger and will have his own business opening all kinds of packages for everyone. The sound of the opening packages, bottles, boxes, etc. is rendered in Japanese onomatopoeic words, which we all know are very idiosyncratic. How did Lisa come up with the English for Japanese words such as Pa -! and Ri-ri-ri-ri! ? Well, she invented a lot of them by listening to the actual sounds of opening and trying to render them in English spelling. Some had repeated vowels or consonants (e.g. “pssht” for a can of soda) to make the sounds longer if the opening sound was long, or “swop” for a short sound like a soy sauce bottle opening.

When the little boy imagines having a magic wand to open larger things, Lisa generally went with more familiar onomatopoeic words in English, such as “zap”, “ping”, or “boom”. She even started to rhyme the words and imagined them building in a crescendo to the ultimate opening, which shows the little boy in space opening the entire Earth in his imagination.

There were one or two typically Japanese pictures, which were seen as universally understandable – for example, a man dressed as an oni (monster or demon) whose mask opened to show he was not scary at all.

The whole talk, in which Lisa shared her experience of rendering sound words into English, reminded me of MAD Magazine’s Don Martin, who was a master of the onomatopoeic word in English, and of the old TV show Batman, which had sound words to suit the action like “Wham!” and “Bop!” written right on the screen in imitation of the words in comic strips, usually decorated with red and yellow flashes of lightning, jagged borders, etc.

There were some very good questions, and the talk was attended by Rico Komanoya, editor of the actual book, and some other familiar (to me) faces, including Avery Fisher-Udagawa from SCBWI and Lynne Riggs from SWET. The emcee was Susan Jones of SCBWI.

Thanks to Lisa for permitting this event to be covered by WiK, and to SCBWI for hosting.