Ryoji Arai was born in Yamagata, Japan, in 1956. He has an illustrative style all his own: bold, mischievous, and unpredictable. Arai studied art at Nippon University. His art is at once genuine and truly poetic, encouraging children to paint and to tell their own stories. He took the Japanese picture book world by storm in the 1990s. Since then, he has won multiple awards, including the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2005, and was Japan’s nominee for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2022. David Boyd teaches translation at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. He won the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2018 for Slow Boat by Hideo Furukawa, in 2022 for The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, and in 2024 for Takaoka’s Travels by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa.

Selected for USBBY’s Outstanding International Books List, 2026! One of BookPage’s Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2025!"Sublime artwork and a mystical story of escape and forgiveness give Ryoji Arai's picture book The Snow Theater a redemptive holiday feeling... Bringing to mind E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker, this beautiful book follows a boy into snowy woods, where he encounters tiny snow dancers and a snow queen who whirl and float on a magical illuminated stage. The colors here are vivid and intense, creating the sense that prismatic light is glancing off the snowflakes to dazzle the eye."

Ryoji Arai was born in Yamagata, Japan, in 1956. He has an illustrative style all his own: bold, mischievous, and unpredictable. Arai studied art at Nippon University. His art is at once genuine and truly poetic, encouraging children to paint and to tell their own stories. He took the Japanese picture book world by storm in the 1990s. Since then, he has won multiple awards, including the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2005, and was Japan’s nominee for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2022. David Boyd teaches translation at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. He won the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2018 for Slow Boat by Hideo Furukawa, in 2022 for The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, and in 2024 for Takaoka’s Travels by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa.

Selected for USBBY’s Outstanding International Books List, 2026! One of BookPage’s Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2025!"Sublime artwork and a mystical story of escape and forgiveness give Ryoji Arai's picture book The Snow Theater a redemptive holiday feeling... Bringing to mind E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker, this beautiful book follows a boy into snowy woods, where he encounters tiny snow dancers and a snow queen who whirl and float on a magical illuminated stage. The colors here are vivid and intense, creating the sense that prismatic light is glancing off the snowflakes to dazzle the eye."

Ryoji Arai was born in Yamagata, Japan, in 1956. He has an illustrative style all his own: bold, mischievous, and unpredictable. Arai studied art at Nippon University. His art is at once genuine and truly poetic, encouraging children to paint and to tell their own stories. He took the Japanese picture book world by storm in the 1990s. Since then, he has won multiple awards, including the Astrid Lindgren Memorial Award in 2005, and was Japan’s nominee for the prestigious Hans Christian Andersen Award in 2022. David Boyd teaches translation at Kobe City University of Foreign Studies. He won the Japan-U.S. Friendship Commission Prize for the Translation of Japanese Literature in 2018 for Slow Boat by Hideo Furukawa, in 2022 for The Hole by Hiroko Oyamada, and in 2024 for Takaoka’s Travels by Tatsuhiko Shibusawa.

Selected for USBBY’s Outstanding International Books List, 2026! One of BookPage’s Most Anticipated Books of Fall 2025!"Sublime artwork and a mystical story of escape and forgiveness give Ryoji Arai's picture book The Snow Theater a redemptive holiday feeling... Bringing to mind E.T.A. Hoffmann's Nutcracker, this beautiful book follows a boy into snowy woods, where he encounters tiny snow dancers and a snow queen who whirl and float on a magical illuminated stage. The colors here are vivid and intense, creating the sense that prismatic light is glancing off the snowflakes to dazzle the eye."