Performing Kamishibai: An Emerging New Literacy for a Global Audience by Tara M. McGowan

Written by Tara M. McGowan, Performing Kamishibai: An Emerging New Literacy for a Global Audience explores the potential of the Japanese performance tradition of kamishibai in an educational setting. The study analyzes McGowan's experiences introducing kamishibai in two different classrooms; it also discusses its potential to upend traditional educational hierarchies and to offer students a multimodal form of communication. Performing Kamishibai is the result of meticulous and dedicated research and analysis and gives a unique perspective on the opportunities kamishibai offers in an educational environment.

McGowan clarifies in her introduction that her book is not a study of kamishibai performance in Japan but rather the implementation of the art form in the classroom. Throughout the book, she discusses the dominance of text-based learning and writing in the American school system. Her main argument is that text-based work is only one mode of communication. Kamishibai offers students multiple modes with which to communicate: drawing, oral storytelling, writing, reading, and performance.

The book's first chapter features an introduction to kamishibai's performance history. McGowan touches on several topics relevant to Japanese studies, including kamishibai's roots as street performance and its history with propaganda, the military, and the government before, during, and after World War II. In the context of the entire work, this chapter is quite brief. Rather than launching into a detailed history lesson, McGowan chooses to focus on the performative aspects of the oral storytelling medium. She discusses several different regional performance traditions; she later ties these traditions with her students' performances. Surprisingly, the chapter does not include a detailed analysis of any one performance of kamishibai in Japan. Such a discussion could have provided a foundation with which to compare and contrast students' performances. However, McGowan restates her overall goal: "Rather than attempt to engage in the debates around what might constitute 'authentic' or traditional performance in Japan, I am much more interested in discovering what potential kamishibai may have as it moves into formal and informal contexts of learning worldwide" (p. 25). Her focus is on the classroom, and it is there where she turns her analytical lens on the students' processes and performances.

The strongest and most compelling element of McGowan's work is her analysis of how specific students respond to the multimodal opportunities provided by kamishibai. She describes her experiences bringing the project into two very different classrooms. She dedicates several chapters to each classroom experience, first introducing the existing educational environment and then discussing the process of the kamishibai project. The accounts of the different and varied reactions from the teachers, administrators, and staff involved is a fascinating study in classroom rigidity and fluidity. While the primary focus of the overall study is on the students, the responses from the authority figures involved shed light on many of the inherent power structures and hierarchies in the American school system.

McGowan details the different stages of each project, as she first introduces kamishibai to the students and then collaborates with them to develop their own stories and performances. She provides multiple case studies focusing on specific students, tracking the challenges and successes each face throughout the process. She focuses on both struggling and thriving students (especially in writing curricula) and describes how each handles the transition to a new form of expression and communication.

One of her key conclusions reveals that kamishibai embraces the "emerging" qualities of live performance. In a traditional text-based literacy program, there is a drive towards a final product. This product, once revised and edited, is seen as concrete once it reaches the final draft. McGowan argues that kamishibai stories constantly evolve and develop over the course of multiple performances. She includes comparisons between the students' performances at different points throughout the process, and how many of the students incorporate live feedback from their audiences into their next performances. The students gain confidence over time, and their interactions with audiences become bolder and more creative. Having the opportunity to perform in front of multiple audiences not only gives the students a unique outlet for self-expression, it also provides a chance for artistic voices to grow and evolve.

The case studies focusing on students who have been labeled with learning difficulties in the traditional school system are particularly inspiring. McGowan reveals how these students often flourish when introduced to the new forms of communication provided by kamishibai. Several of the students discuss how drawing is often relegated to nonwork times of the school day and is often discouraged even during free time. The project elevated the status of drawing in the classroom; that shift opened pathways for students who learn and create visually. The examples of these students speak to the change in educational discourse and study towards individualized learning: not every student learns in the same way. McGowan's study supports this concept, and demonstrates how kamishibai provides multiple pathways for learning in the classroom.

Some of the most insightful sections of the study feature interviews with students and teachers after kamishibai performances. While several initially viewed the project as daunting, foreign, and disconnected from the rest of the curriculum, the process allowed the students to think and express themselves in truly unique ways. Some of the most shy and reclusive students became incredibly inspired by the project and engaged with their audiences through oral storytelling techniques. McGowan's commitment to offering different modes of expression clearly affected several of these students' lives in impactful ways, and reading about those personal transformations layers Performing Kamishibai with a meaningful human element.

Though its usefulness for Asian theatre scholars may be somewhat limited, Performing Kamishibai is a revealing and thoughtprovoking work for those working in education. Though the study involved students in elementary schools, the potential opportunities provided by kamishibai could benefit students at all educational levels. McGowan's writing is clear, to the point, and readable, and the work's structure reveals how much change occurred due to the introduction of kamishibai into these classrooms. Though it confronts and dialogues with several challenges and issues in the current educational system, it is also a work full of hope and positive change.