The Cheerful Heart

A story of the rebuilding of lives as well as homes in bombed Tokyo, after the war was over, told through the tale of small Tomi and the Tamaki family. It is refreshing to have a modern Japanese setting, even though the picture of poverty and destruction is not a pretty one. The Tamakis, once a well-to-do family, meet the situation with very normal response — disillusionment, disappointment, but ultimately with momentary acceptance, until something better is available. And Tomi gave her gift of “a cheerful heart” even when her beloved bicycle was stolen — and at the end when the room she had longed for must be sacrificed. KIRKUS REVIEW


Elizabeth Gray Vining (1902 - 1999) wrote many books for adults and young people, most of the latter, including the Newbery Award winner Adam of the Road, under the name Elizabeth Janet Gray.

The settings for Mrs. Vining’s novels range from thirteenth-century England in Adam of the Road to present-day Japan in The Cheerful Heart. In The Taken Girl the setting is Philadelphia in the nineteenth century. Mrs. Vining was born and brought up in Germantown, so she was writing about a city she knew well and about the Quaker background that is part of her heritage.

During and immediately following the Second World War Mrs. Vining wrote reports, articles, and appeals for the American Friends Service Committee until, in 1946, she was appointed English tutor to Crown Prince Akihito by the Imperial Household of Japan. She remained in Japan for four years as tutor to the Crown Prince and also taught other members of the Imperial Household and the boys and girls at the Peers and Peeresses schools.