本と本の間The Gap on the Shelf

About this story

Shota's mother gives him a new book every week and he has never opened one. On a class visit to the library everybody has to borrow two, and the first book he ever reads turns out to be about tanuki.

An original story written by Yomimaru for JLPT N5 readers.

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What you'll learn

A boy whose mother sends him a new book every week never opens any of them. Books begin to go missing from his shelf and he keeps quiet about it, and then his class goes on a trip to the library.

Key vocabulary

本ほん	book
ほんだな	bookshelf
間あいだ	the space between two things; a gap
さつ	counter for books and bound volumes
茶釜ちゃがま	a heavy iron kettle for heating water for tea
大切たいせつ	important, precious
図書館としょかん	library
たぬき	tanuki, the raccoon dog of Japanese folktales

Grammar points you'll meet

• ～があります N5あります says that a thing exists or is there. It is used for objects, not for people or animals.

  ぼくのへやには、本ほんがたくさんあります。

• ～ている N5The て form plus います gives an action that is going on right now, or a state that is still true.

  だれかが、ぼくの本ほんをぬすんでいます。

• ～てある N4The て form plus あります describes the result someone left behind: the writing is there because a person wrote it.

  本ほんの中なかに「ショウタ」と名前なまえが書かいてあります。

• ～から N5から at the end of a sentence gives the reason for what was just said. The reason can come after the result, as it does here.

  毎週まいしゅう、新あたらしい本ほんが来きますから。

• ～ましょう N5ましょう suggests doing something together. A teacher uses it to tell a class what everyone will do.

  一いち人にん、二にさつ借かりましょう

• Dictionary form+と N4Plain form plus と means that whenever the first thing happens, the second one follows. It is used for habits and for rules that always hold.

  よるになると、人ひとのうちに入はいります。

Cultural notes

• The tanuki of the folktalesA tanuki is a real animal, a raccoon dog that lives in the hills of Japan. In old stories it is also a trickster with the power to change what it looks like, so a tanuki in a picture book is rarely just an animal. Pottery tanuki still stand outside restaurants today.
• The iron kettle over the fireA 茶釜 is a wide iron kettle used to heat water for tea. It sits over a fire or a hearth rather than on a stove, it is heavy, and a family keeps the same one for years, so it is not a thing that is easily replaced.
• Stamped, not signedIn Japan a small carved seal called a はんこ does the job a signature does elsewhere. It is pressed into red ink and onto the paper, and libraries, offices and banks all stamp their paperwork this way.

Topics & grammar