📚 😈 Week 1 | 図書館の怪談 | Children's Novel Club

Japanese Language Book Clubs
1

Welcome to week 1 of 図書室の怪談！

図書室の怪談
図書室の怪談326×500 52.2 KB

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Week 1 Oct 11
Chapter 悪魔の本
Pages with text ~12
Ending Point End of chapter
Characters
Character Kanji Kana
224×226 57.5 KB
 樋口大樹 ヒグチ ダイキ
217×216 40.8 KB
 綾目 アヤメ

Discussion Guidelines

  • Please blur/hide any major events in the current week’s pages (however early they occur), like so:

  • (that’s [spoiler]text here[/spoiler]).

  • If you have a question about grammar, vocab, the story, cultural things or anything else related to the book — ask! There’s no need to be shy. If it’s something you are wondering about, chances are someone else will be thankful you asked first, lots of people enjoy answering questions, you learn something new, and the thread gets more lively. It’s a win-win on all fronts!

Participation Poll
  • I’m reading along!
  • I’m reading at my own pace
  • I’m reading this after the book club has finished
0 voters
11 Likes
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first page of chapter

On the first page of the chapter (page 6 in the paperback), we get the word 柱時計 with no furigana! While 時計 is a WK level 15 word and beginning readers will probably recognize it, 柱 is a WK level 40 (!!) word.

However, it’s a grade 3 kanji for Japanese schoolchildren, which means you may see it without furigana in children’s books. Those dang kids, having better kanji skills than us WK’ers! :angry: It means ‘pillar’ and is read はしら with the on’yomi チュウ。And when you put it together, a ‘pillar clock’ is a grandfather clock!

This word will come up a lot in the reading :eyes: so since you’re learning it now, if you’re doing WK, when you get all the way to level 40 you’ll have a kanji freebie! :relieved_face:

This week's reading

The story: S先生 was crushed flat!
Me: :fearful:
Next page: And then S先生 transferred to a new school

Oh, okay, I guess he was fine then :joy:

Only just started but I enjoyed the reading, looking forward to this book!

6 Likes
3

I read this chapter and I think I like it so far

scary story

I think I missed something in the story about S先生. I get that he was carrying the clock back and forth to the warehouse and eventually tried it without help and got crushed. It’s supposed to be a scary story related to the grandfather clock but I don’t think it’s real.

I do like the opening where he’s really sucked into a book he’s reading and is jarred out of it by the clock chime going off in the real world.

One new word I found on the prologue page was 忍び込んで for a book snuck into the spaces between other books. It’s an interesting way to spook the reader by asking if the book they’re reading is secretly evil or something.

5 Likes
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The S 先生 story

S先生 had the clock moved to a warehouse because he didn’t like it. But the clock appeared back in the library the next morning! When it kept happening, he set up cameras and saw that he himself was the one carrying the clock back and forth…without knowing. :open_mouth: Despite the fact that he could be seen easily carrying the clock on camera, when he went to pick it up to take it back to the warehouse, it fell on him and crushed him because it was too heavy.

I liked this one too :slightly_smiling_face:

4 Likes
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なるほど🧐
I had missed the forest for the trees some.

S先生

I remembered the installing of video cameras and the fact it was heavy enough it needed three people, then he carried it himself on the video as if it was really light.

I had missed that it moved back by itself each morning and he didn’t know how at first. It makes more sense now that I reread it knowing that part. Kind of ties together moving the clock in the first place and why he had video cameras. I like the reasoning that a pendulum clock is too loud for a library.

I still wonder if this is a “real” ghost story the girl at the counter knows or if she’s made it up trying to scare the main character.

2 Likes
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reply

That’s the question :thinking: The way she’s smiling in her character card picture looks a little shady, I don’t know if we should trust her :joy:

3 Likes