Ichiro Sakamoto (1904-1987) is well known in relation to school library policy, which was a symbol of the educational "reforms" imposed by the United States after World War II; he also edited the Dokusho Shido Jiten (Encyclopedia of Reading Guidance), and was an educational psychologist who contributed to the establishment of the Japan Reading Association. Here I will examine the processes he used in forming the concepts that underlie his reading guidance system. Drawing on social education from the time of the war, Sakamoto designed reading guidance as life guidance for young students. Sakamoto regarded libraries as American, and an incongruity between his views and the Japanese libraries arose. He sought to make a clear distinction between library and establish guidance on how and what to read for "the training of the national language". He called reading guidance “library education”, but he was dismissive of accessing library and books. Sakamoto greatly admired American psychology around the start of the Cold War, and developed a test to evaluate childrenʼs literacy. Sakamoto set the purposes of reading guidance as standardizing vocabulary and providing a kind of character building that maintained social order. He referred to the former as "dokusho" (reading) and the latter as "jinkaku" (character).

This study focuses on booklists, in particular, lists of recommended books for reading by children. The purpose of this paper is to clarify the extent to which booklists are created and provided, and what books are contained in those booklists. A Web-based survey was carried out in November 2015, focusing on booklists for elementary school students created by prefectures, and the results were quantitatively analyzed.

As a result of the survey, 81 booklists in 41 prefectures were found, indicating that booklists for elementary school students are created and provided throughout the country. Also, these booklists were categorized into five types, each having its own features in terms of the number of books contained and the creator/provider of the booklists.

Furthermore, to explore the characteristics of the books listed, 78 booklists which were fully open on the Web were collected and analyzed. The results clarified that 1) many books in the booklists were newer year of publication, but books with the older publication year were also contained in a certain proportion and 2) most books are classified as either literature or picture books.