The Mottainai Song



Fun video and simple dance for the kids. Mottainai Grandma is a picture book by Mariko Shinju, published by Kodansha, that has sold half a million copies.

She is now on tour in Japan talking about the problems we all face, not just environmental issues, but also child labour and worse.

"What do you mean by Mottainai?" One day I was asked by my child. How can I explain this word? There are some Japanese words that cannot be translated into English and Mottainai is the one and is difficult to explain even in Japanese. This is how I started to think about making this picture story book. - Mariko Shinju

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