Momoko Ishii

She was the first member of the Japanese Art Academy from the field of children's literature.

Ishii was born in Urawa, Saitama, and graduated from the Japan Women's University with an English literature degree in 1928.

While working as an editor at Iwanami Shoten Publishers, she decided to become a children's writer after reading Winnie-the-Pooh by English author A.

In 1958, she started a library for children called "Katsura bunko" in her own house.

[2] Ishii received many honors in her life, including the Minister of Education Award for Promotion of Art for Non-chan kumo ni noru (1951), the Kikuchi Kan Award for achievement and contribution to the postwar world of children's literature (1953), the Itochu Memorial Foundation Award for Distinguished Service to Children's Bunko (1984), the Japanese Art Academy Award for achievement in the world of children's books (1993), and the 1994 Yomiuri Prize for her two-volume autobiographical novel Maboroshi No Akai Mi (Memoirs of a childhood) in 1995.