This classic Japanese YA written in 1975 was just translated into English in 2025 by Avery Fischer Udagawa. I could not wait to get my hands on it and lo and behold, there it was in my library.

This legendary book had inspired Hayao Miyazaki’s Spirited Away.

This is my first Japanese YA novel. It is pretty short at 152 pages, but the sense of wonder is all-encompassing from the very get-go. Lina, a 6th grader, is looking for Misty Valley upon her father’s instructions to spend her vacation there this year instead of at her grandparents in Nagano.

Lina’s father had visited the place when he was a kid himself and gave Lina detailed instructions for the train changes and assured her that he’ll call ahead and someone will come and collect her. But she had to find her own way there, or so she believes, and she keeps getting surprised at her surroundings and the people she comes across.

She arrives at Picotto Hall by mysterious means in a town that looks abandoned and is met by Ms. Picotto, a foreboding woman of hot temper, and the other guests at the house, Icchan, John, Kinu-san and Gentleman, the cat.

This strange town with six grand houses in the middle of the mountains has its own set of rules. Everyone has to work in this town to earn their keep, and Lina is assigned to Nata’s bookshop as her first stop. As she bonds with the inhabitants of the area, she comes to know that they call it Absurd Avenue. The seasons are all magicked to blend together, seasonal flowers are in bloom all year round and the street glistens like it just rained. Part of this is owed to the inventor Icchan but most of it is the magic of the place.

The strange and wonderous place blooms as the plot progresses.

The bookstore is no exception to the quirks of the place. It’s a used-book shop where the books sulk on the floor when they get dusty. So along with Nata, the bookseller, Lina gets to finding and dusting the books. Nata discloses that the residents are all descendants of sorcerers and humans are hard to come by to this part of the world.

More and more secrets about the place are gradually revealed as Lina’s adventure takes her to each of these establishments and gets her acquainted with the people of the place.

We have unique food, names of the people and their own unique quirks. Magic sure explains a lot of oddities of the place. As all YA, there are lessons seeped into this story as well. As much of lovingly weird the people are, their imperfections make them interesting, as opposed to being perfect and boring.

Nata sells books depending on how the reader immerse themselves into the book and takes care of them — without payment. So does Thomas, the marine supply store owner across the street, who lives there with his talking parrot, Dummy.

Misty Valley connects with a lot of places that serves on a need basis. If you need to find something that these establishments sell, you will get to this place. Lina, however, had to take the usual way and change three trains since she was there by invitation. But once there, she encounters centaurs, gnomes, imps ambling about at Absurd Avenue but somehow it blends in with the magic of the place and after a while, Lina forgets to be surprised.

She visits Thomas’ place on an errand for Nata and ends up cleaning for them. Her natural inclinations towards kindness and nice disposition makes her dear to the people she meets, and she wins them over with her honest personality.

Wrapping up her work at Nata’s, she is next assigned to Shikka’s ceramic store. Shikka is quieter than Nata but just as insightful at his job. Together, they help out the queen find her son who had been turned into pottery by a wizard and free a tiger from an enchantment from the circus magician.

“He who does not work, shall not eat” is at the core of the lesson of this story. Ms. Picotto’s refrain for “What exactly did I say?” is also another focus point of the story that recenters the narrative time and again. Nobody likes her needling ways but she is a gentle soul underneath all the meanness.

Lina is next assigned to Monday’s toy shop to help him make kendana toys. Monday and his son, Sunday, are under strange spells that Lin helps break and then her adventure is concluded. Toke’s candy shop in town deserves special mention amidst all of the quests. Just as she is leaving, she is invited back for another year and we look forward to the strange adventure again.

The story probably won’t meet today’s standards of representations and implications. Lina constantly being made to clean, Ms. Picotto’s pointless rudeness and Thomas needing women to pick up after him — these don’t recommend themselves to the modern reader but the sense of wonder the narrative invokes is almost actually magical.

I read my fair share of YA novels and this one was really good. If you’re looking to read more translated fiction, this one is a great option.