This cloth book depicts a day in the life of a bear. Many of the pictures are interactive and fun to touch and manipulate.

Japan is seeing a growing boom in "barrier-free" picture books that can be enjoyed by all children - both those with disabilities and those without. These hand-crafted books include some with large print for children with poor vision, some with braille and raised letters for children to touch, and some that deal with disabilities as a theme. Books made from cloth, with their easy-to-turn pages, allow blind and disabled children to practice moving their hands and fingers. Volunteer groups dedicated to making these works - which range from traditional picture books to well-known manga (comics) - have sprung up across Japan.

Cloth Books a Big Hit
Barrier-free picture books, which present no barriers to readers of any ability, are made for children with visually impairments or developmental or physical disabilities. Many of these kids are unable to enjoy playing outside, and they often face difficulties in the educational and cultural realms. Most of the work creating these books is done by volunteers who hope to impart to these children the joy of reading.

One group known for its pioneering work in the creation of cloth books is a volunteer organization in Sapporo called Fukinoto Bunko. The group has set up a special library in Sapporo called the Fukinoto Children's Library, which lends cloth picture books, large-print books, and textbooks created by the group to children. The organization has also set up lending libraries in the pediatric wards of hospitals around Japan. Today Fukinoto Bunko is selling materials and instructions necessary for people to make their own cloth books and otherwise helping to nurture similar organizations across the country.

A woman in Akita Prefecture's Honjo City, meanwhile, has opened up the drawing room in her family's home and turned it into a lending library of cloth and other picture books. She began creating her own books more than 20 years ago and has completed a total of 79. The books are made with materials like buttons, fasteners, and velcro so that kids can enjoy them using their sense of touch. One book features beans attached with snaps that readers can remove from their pod, for example. This home library has now been open for 10 years, and the collection of donated books and cloth picture books has grown to about 2,000 volumes.

Books for the Blind and Sighted
A volunteer group in Osaka called Fureai Bunko is creating and lending braille picture books. The braille letters are applied with clear tape that does not get in the way of the pictures, so both blind and seeing children can enjoy the same books and share reading experiences.

A growing number of major publishing companies have begun releasing barrier-free books. Shogakukan has published two such volumes by renowned manga artist Fujio Akatsuka, titled Yoidon! (Let's go!) and Nyarome o sagase! (Where's Nyarome?). Both of these game-like books feature Akatsuka's famous cat character Nyarome. In the first volume kids run a marathon with Nyarome, and they must search for him in the pages of the second. Both the marathon course and Nyarome's whereabouts are depicted using a special type of raised printing that lets kids enjoy the books with their fingers or the naked eye. Both children with and without visual impairments get to play the games under identical conditions.

The market for these barrier-free books is still not large enough to bring many writers and publishers into the field, and the books are not mass-produced. But there are many people who see the joy these books bring to all children, disabled or not, and volunteers are working hard to create these works and get them in the hands of the children who need them. Slowly but surely, barrier-free picture books are making their presence felt.