Founded in 1949 in Tokyo as publisher, Shiko-Sha has been publishing artistic picture books with high quality on special paper.

With a little but poetic text and beautiful illustration, the books are characterised as "feeling picture books" to provoke the readers' imagination, regardless of their age. "Picture books for children from 0 to 100 years old" is our motto on making the books. Fourteen books were awarded international book prizes such as the Bologna Children's Book Fair's Critic Elba Award, Graphic Award, Bratislava BIB Golden Apple Prize, etc. in the past 50 years.

In 35 years since 1965, 189 books by 70 artists were co-published in seventeen different countries in various languages. They were sent to each country in complete book form so as to keep the same high quality as the Japanese original editions.

In November 1999, we started our homepage in Japanese to seek another possibility of our picture books in the network era. Though only a beginner, thanks to The Web Connection Co. Ltd., our collaborator, our site was awarded the FY99 International Web Page Awards in the Literature Category. It is a reward for us to work harder and further in this new field.

In the near future, we hope to show our English version of "art museum" to share our dream with you. Till then, please enjoy our beautiful picture books in Japanese.