Enter a soft, warm home full of stories in Mina's Matchbox

On March 16, 1972, 12-year-old Tomoko takes the Sanyo Shinkansen line from Okayama City, Japan, to the coastal town of Ashiya to stay with her aunt's family.

- Charmaine Lim

MINA'S MATCHBOX By Yoko Ogawa; translated by Stephen B. Snyder Fiction/Pantheon Books/ Paperback/240 pages/$28.95

Thus begins a year that will forever change her life.

From the moment she arrives, Tomoko is swept up in a family unit entirely unlike her own - a handsome and wealthy uncle, a German great-aunt, a mysterious yet dignified aunt, a fiercely loyal family housekeeper and Pochiko, the family's pygmy hippopotamus.

At the centre of it all is her asthmatic cousin Mina, whose condition is the primary worry of the family.

Precocious and imaginative, she carries a matchbox with her everywhere and slowly draws Tomoko into a world of whimsical storytelling and secret crushes as the two girls form a deep bond.

Early on, Tomoko describes her cousin: "Even when she was relatively healthy, if you listened carefully, you could hear a sound like the winter wind blowing at the back of her throat - a troubled sound, as though her body were bewildered at the prospect of having to support such a beautiful face."