Welcome to the 10分でよめるこわいはなし・ 10 minute scary stories Book Club!
Reading starts March 1st, 2025
Reader beware, you’re in for a scare…
Join us to read 12 tales of terror from Japanese folklore! This collection of stories is intended for Japanese first graders, meaning that the only kanji included will be kanji taught in first grade. All kanji also include furigana.
Special features: This is a collection of standalone short stories. Please use this to your advantage! For example, if you start the club late, or life gets in the way and you get behind the reading schedule - simply join the club at the current chapter. You can always go back to read previous chapters and comment on the relevant threads.
We create a reading schedule, with a set number of pages to work through each week. Each week we create a new discussion thread for that week’s reading. In those threads we discuss everything from vocab and grammar to the characters and story. We try to help each other by contributing to the shared vocab list, by answering each other’s questions and by keeping each other motivated.
Discussion Guidelines
Spoiler Courtesy
Please follow these rules to avoid inadvertent ネタバレ. If you’re unsure whether something should have a spoiler tag, err on the side of using one.
Any potential spoiler for the current week’s reading need only be covered by a spoiler tag. Predictions and conjecture made by somebody who has not read ahead still falls into this category.
Any potential spoilers for external sources need to be covered by a spoiler tag and include a label (outside of the spoiler tag) of what might be spoiled. These include but are not limited to: other book club picks, other books, games, movies, anime, etc. I recommend also tagging the severity of the spoiler (for example, I may still look at minor spoilers for something that I don’t intend to read soon).
Any information from later in the book than the current week’s reading (including trigger warnings that haven’t yet manifested) needs to be hidden by spoiler tags and labeled as coming from later sections.
Instructions for Spoiler Tags
Click the cog above the text box and use either the “Hide Details” or “Blur Spoiler” options. The text which says “This text will be hidden” should be replaced with what you are wishing to write. In the case of “Hide Details”, the section in the brackets that is labelled “Summary” can be replaced with whatever you like also (i.e, [details=”Chapter 1, Pg. 1”]).
Hide Details results in the dropdown box like below:
Example
This is an example of the “Hide Details” option.
The “Blur Spoiler” option will simply blur the text it surrounds.
This is an example of the “Blur Spoiler” option.
Posting Advice
When asking for help, please mention the page number, and check before posting that your question hasn’t already been asked. As the threads get longer, it becomes more convenient to use the Search function, which is located in the upper right corner of the forum. It is the magnifying glass which is near your profile picture! The best way to search is usually to type part of the sentence you are confused about, and select “in this topic”. This will show you all posts within the current thread which has that string of text.
Be sure to join the conversation! It’s fun, and it’s what keeps these book clubs lively! There’s no such thing as a stupid question! We are all learning here, and if the question has crossed your mind, there’s a very good chance it has crossed somebody else’s also! Asking and answering questions is a great learning opportunity for everyone involved, so never hesitate to do so!
How do I join in?
Get yourself a copy of the book (see “Where to purchase” below)
Click on the participation poll below to let us know you’re planning to join in
Set this thread to “watching” so you get updates on the group (go just past the last post in this thread, click on the grey box that says “normal” or “tracking” and change this to “watching”)
*Note about the Bookwalker digital edition: the item is region-locked to Japan, meaning that it requires VPN usage to purchase. Once purchased, the item can be accessed in your Bookwalker library with no VPN.
Schedule
TBD- Begins March 1st
Resources and vocabulary
VOLUME 1 Vocabulary spreadsheet- TBD Please read the guidelines on the first page before adding any words.
Jisho is a popular online Japanese-English dictionary.
ichi.moe is a tool for parsing out sentences. You can type/paste in a whole sentence and it will try and break the sentence down into its individual parts.
Deepl will translate a sentence from Japanese to English. It’s obviously not going to be right all the time, so if you want to check your translation it’s normally better to ask in the thread.
This book is roughly 180 pages long. For similar ABBC picks in the past, these story collection books were read at a pace of 1 page per day. This would result in… roughly 24 weeks for this book club. We’re already planning on reading A Sign of Affection next, so 24 weeks seems long to me for those who are waiting on the next book.
There are a few options here that I can see, so let’s poll:
Read all 12 stories at the same pace, resulting in a roughly 24 week schedule.
Read half of the stories, resulting in a roughly 12 week schedule (normal for this book club)
Ramp up the pace partway through to read more pages at a time.
I checked it out, and it looks pretty simple compared to what we’ve been reading. If the members are comfortable, I think that we could read it at a quicker pace. If not, I vote for half the stories, because I wouldn’t want to spend so long on one book.
I agree, nearly half a year for one book seems a bit much.
If we want to keep the slower pace, then I think it would make sense to read half the stories, and those who are interested can read the rest in their own time.
Does anyone have a book already to comment on pages with text? These books normally have illustrations, so judging by my 2nd grade biographies and science books, every 2 pages is really only 1-1.5 pages of text. I wonder if (depending on how the pages with text work out), the club eased in with the first story in 2 weeks, or the first 2 stories in 3 weeks, the remaining stories could be read 1 story per week which probably comes out to only a bit more than a page a day of text.
Also, we could encourage people who read slower than the club to take advantage of the episodic / independent story nature of the book. This worked well in Doraemon. There have been quite a few people joining Doraemon later where the club is, or skipping ahead to where the club is if they fall behind. This scary stories book will also work really well for that. If someone reads a story in 2 weeks, then they could skip one to join the club at the next story.
However, a vast majority of pages have an illustration. I counted the pages that were just text, with no illustration, in the righthand column, just so everyone can see. This should make things easier, since overall most of the ‘pages’ are a half page.
Story
Pages with text
Full pages of text (no illustration)
1. めし くわぬ にょうぼう
22
8
2. 赤い くつ
20
4
3. ひっこしの よる
10
0
4. しにがみ
18
4
5. 山ねこの ばけもの
14
3
6. わたしとトイレの 花子さん
15
3
7. びんの 中の おばけ
17
5
8. のっぺらぼう
13
1
9. うしの 足あと
6
0
10. なつ休みの オバケ
10
0
11. まんぷく草
8
1
12. とうげの おばけれっ車
21
0
In total, the book has 174 pages of text, but the story page numbers are a bit uneven. I’m sure we can make a ramp-up schedule work, though.
Here’s my effort (feel free to chime in with other options):
Week
Story
Pages with text
1
めし くわぬ にょうぼう pt 1
7
2
めし くわぬ にょうぼう pt 2
7
3
めし くわぬ にょうぼう pt 3
8
4
赤い くつ pt 1
10
5
赤い くつ pt 2
10
6
ひっこしの よる
10
7
しにがみ pt 1
14
8
しにがみ pt 2
4
山ねこの ばけもの
14
9
わたしとトイレの 花子さん
15
10
びんの 中の おばけ
17
11
のっぺらぼう
13
うしの 足あと
6
12
なつ休みの オバケ
10
まんぷく草
8
13
とうげの おばけれっ車
21
The only awkward place is week 7 (14 pages) to week 8 (18 pages) to week 9 (15 pages), but it’s a bit tricky to split the stories up conveniently, and I wanted the later weeks to have 1 story per week for convenience.
I’m pretty hyped for this book club! I don’t know a lot of folklore yet, so this will be a great starting point! In addition, since it’s a book with only first grader kanji, it’s totally doable to binge them beforehand and then recognize them in the book to deepen the learning.
For how to time, i’m a big fan of reading one story per week. It’s convenient, and it doesnt feel good to not finish a story. The first story is crazy long, though? But since the stories are independent, could we change the reading order to just start with the shortest story? Maybe breaking up the longer ones in half? But that would also be a bit inconvenient, to make sure to read the right story when they are out of order…
What is everybody thinking to change the reading order of the stories to shorter stories (and longer half stories) in the beginning and doing the longer stories later on?
You have to use a VPN and set your region to Japan to buy. after you bought it, you will be able to read it normally without using a VPN. But i have no clue how to use a VPN myself, so I cant help you there. The other options to buy a book should work well.
You can use a free VPN like Tunnelbear for the purchase. You’ll only need it one time for the purchase, and you won’t need it to access the book afterwards!
This is my concern with reading out of order. I think it would be potentially too confusing for club members to find the right story each week rather than just reading them all in order.
I’m excited, as this will be my first Japanese book club. I think the schedule proposed sounds reasonable, averaging 1-3 pages per day. As has been said, if anyone feels overwhelmed, it will be easy to skip every other story to take the remainder at half-pace.
I confirm that I was able to pretty easily sign up for a free TunnelBear account and use it to purchase the digital book from BookWalker, having never used either of those resources before. I’d prefer to buy the hardcopy, but not enough to pay ￥2900 shipping from Amazon.co.jp.
Book Club!
Reader beware, you’re in for a scare…
How it works
Discussion Guidelines
How do I join in?
Schedule
Resources and vocabulary
Membership
We’re already planning on reading A Sign of Affection next, so 24 weeks seems long to me for those who are waiting on the next book.
I might switch to a physical copy.