Reading has been considered a central part of children’s developmental process for a long time now. From selected moral texts aimed at a small, privileged audience to the establishment of mandatory literacy education for young people, it is part of the cultural reproduction mechanism set by society. However, the act of reading is also considered entertaining in itself. This “Reading Boy” is material proof of this.

A well-dressed boy with a buttoned jacket, a bow tie and striped pants is flipping the pages of a picturebook, which has illustrations of domestic animals and their names (a cat, dog, duck, hen, rat, fox, pony, pig and calf). This is the “Mechanical A Good Reader. Reading Boy” made in the 1950s postwar Japan. Due to the Allied occupation (1945-1952) and the ban on manufacturing war equipment, the Japanese industry had to adapt and reinvent itself. Instead of weapons, they had to produce something that was allowed under the new 1947 Constitution and its “No War” ninth article. One solution for this was tin toys with clockwork mechanisms. Alps Toys, one of the many brands that chose to produce toys to keep the industrial sector alive, created the Baby Book series: a reading boy, a robot, a bear, a rabbit and even Santa Claus are all looking through the same book. This is made possible by the magnets in their hands/paws, which move after turning the handle on the back of the toy. The toys were produced mainly for the American market though they also found their way to the European market.
Is it really fun for a child to stay still watching a tin toy changing the pages of a book in a loop? The initial amusement with the clockwork mechanism may be exchanged for other, more imaginative, play as well as a companion for reading time. This boy is more of a reading promotion artefact than anything else. Maybe parents trusted it to set an example or to motivate their children to grab a book? Who knows.
Tine van Buul, a Dutch author and former director of the Querido Publisher, found this reader-boy and gave him the space to carry on with his neverending book on the shelves that contained a vast collection of reading paraphernalia. He was placed with other reading toys, sculptures and prints. The museum Huis van Het Boek (“The House of the Book”) in the Hague acquired this mechanical toy to preserve it and, more importantly, to continue sharing the significance and historical value of the book and, of course, reading.
Francisca Tapia Álvarez (she/her) is a Chilean Spanish teacher currently studying a master’s in Children’s Literature, Media and Culture at the University of Glasgow. During her third semester, she worked as an intern in the museum Huis van het Boek in The Hague, the Netherlands. Her main academic interests include critical disability studies, decolonisation and children’s historical media.