A Japanese boy "not yet old enough to wear long pants" catches a cold playing at a neighbor's carp pond and is put to bed by his mother after a hot bath. The mother seems unusually preoccupied and even severe as she folds origami figures; she then, inexplicably, digs up and brings inside the little pine tree belonging to her son. As she hangs tiny origami birds on the tree, the mother reminisces about Christmas during her own childhood in warm California, long before she came to Japan and met the boy's father. Two stories about promising and giving overlap in an unusual full-color 11 1/4" x 10 1/4" book evoking two past generations, two cultures and traditional early-20th century Japanese domestic life. (Ages 5-7)

As a young Japanese boy recovers from a bad chill, his mother busily folds origami paper into delicate silver cranes in preparation for the boy's very first Christmas.