The Girl Who Leapt Through Time

The Girl Who Leapt Through Time includes two short stories by Yasutaka Tsutsui, one of Japan’s most important children’s writers. Originally written in 1967 these two stories have just been translated into English for the first time.

Better known in the UK as the anime, The Girl Who Leapt Through Time is the story of 15-year-old schoolgirl Kazuko, who accidentally discovers that she can leap back and forth in time after a strange encounter with a shadowy figure at school. She pursues this figure and finds out the secrets to her ability to teletransport.

The second story ‘The Stuff that Nightmares Are Made Of’ is a psychological story about irrational fears and where they come from. A young girl has recurring flash backs to a former incident she has blocked from her mind, triggered by masks and her fear of heights.

The characters in these stories might appear very two dimensional to a Western audience but fans of time travel literature will enjoy this classic in the genre.