On July 8, 2002, the International Library of Children's Literature (ILCL), which fully opened on Children's Day, May 5, 2002, held a commemorative symposium "From folktales to stories" in the auditorium of the Heiseikan, Tokyo National Museum. It was a fine day even though it was in the middle of the rainy season and 257 people attended the symposium. 

It was held in conjunction with the exhibition "Friends in wonderland-- from folktale to story", being held from May 5 to September 14 in the Museum of the ILCL. 

As speakers, we invited Dr. Sybille A. Jagusch (Chief of the Children's Literature Center, Library of Congress, U.S.A.), Dr. Choe Inhak (professor emeritus of Inha University, Republic of Korea), Prof. Teruo Jingu (professor emeritus of Aoyama Gakuin University), Dr. Jun'ichi Nomura (professor of Kokugakuin University) and Ms. Sho Tatsumiya (author of children's literature). Prof. Jingu and Dr. Nomura supervised the exhibition. They all reported under the theme "things to be handed down to our children", who are living in the information-flooded computer age. 

Dr. Jun'ichi Nomura

Dr. Nomura analyzed folktales and illustrations and pointed out that the scenes in the illustrations are the core of the story in a folktale. When you see the illustrations, you can rebuild the story even though you do not know exact words of the story. 

Dr. Choe's report, "From folktale to children's literature in Korea", compared Korean and Japanese folktales, and introduced the current situation of folktale education in Korea.

Prof. Teruo Jingu

Prof. Jingu titled his report as "From folktale to fiction writing E focusing on the latter half of the 20th century in Japan" and introduced the best works of Japanese fantasy.

Ms. Tatsumiya pointed out through her report "Discovering mother culture in my blood", that we have an even greater need to absorb our own history, culture and tradition as our foundation in this age of internationalization.

Dr. Sybille A. Jagusch

Finally, Dr. Jagusch spoke on "Folktale and fairytale for today's children" and introduced American fairytales after the 1960s.