The Master Puppeteer by Katherine Paterson

First published: 1975; illustrated

Subjects: Arts, family, friendship, and poverty

Type of work: Novel

Type of plot: Adventure tale, historical fiction, and social realism

Time of work: The late eighteenth century

Recommended Ages: 10-15

Locale: Osaka, Japan

Principal Characters:

• Jiro, a new apprentice at the Hanaza puppet theater
• Hanji, Jiro’s father, who makes puppets for a living
• Isako, Jiro’s mother
• Yoshida, the owner and master puppeteer of the Hanaza
• Kinshi, Yoshida’s son, who befriends Jiro
• Mochida, one of the “left-hand manipulators” at the Hanaza
• Okada, the blind and elderly chief chanter at the Hanaza, who was Yoshida’s former master and who, in reality, is Saburo the bandit
• Wada, an apprentice at the puppet theater who is initially jealous of Jiro
• Mioru, another apprentice, who likes to eat
• Teji, a small apprentice who stutters

Form and Content

The Master Puppeteer is at once a fascinating introduction to the complex artistry of the Japanese puppet theater, a gripping historical novel, a mystery, and a study of friendship and loyalty. The novel follows the adventures of thirteen-year-old Jiro, who finds himself caught up in the political events of late eighteenth century Osaka, Japan. When Jiro accompanies his father, Hanji, to deliver a puppet to the Hanaza theater, Yoshida, the owner and master puppeteer, offers to take the boy on as an apprentice. To Jiro’s chagrin, his mother, Isako, does not take Yoshida’s offer seriously. Determined not to be a burden on his family during the current famine, Jiro runs away to the theater, where he becomes an apprentice; he begins his career by opening curtains and memorizing scripts and eventually graduates to a role as a “foot operator.” Along the way, he is helped by an older boy, Yoshida’s son, Kinshi, who does not seem able to please his father.

Worried about his father, who is said to be ill, Jiro briefly returns home to discover that Isako has taken his father to recuperate at a relative’s farm in Kyoto. When Jiro again returns home on New Year’s Day, he discovers that his mother is near starvation. One evening, Saburo, the mysterious bandit who steals from the rich to help the poor, leaves a notice on the door of the theater demanding a special performance of the current play, “The Thief of the Tokaido.” The lights go out after the performance, and the police are bound and their uniforms are stolen. One evening soon after, an angry mob dubbed the “night rovers” tries to break into the theater to get food. Jiro and another apprentice, Teji, are forced to guard the door throughout the night, and Jiro is shocked when he hears his mother’s voice crying out in the crowd.

When Kinshi begins to sneak out of the theater at night to help the night rovers, Jiro asks him to find his mother and help her. One morning when Kinshi is late returning to the theater, Yoshida orders Jiro to take his place and operate the feet of an important character in their latest play. When Jiro goes to the storehouse to find a puppet to use for practice, he discovers a Samurai sword and concludes that Yoshida is really the bandit Saburo. After Jiro tricks Yoshida into allowing Kinshi to take back his role in the play, the boy makes his friend promise to stop his evening forays into the town if Kinshi can arrange for him to meet Saburo, who might be able to help the night rovers. Jiro then seeks out Yoshida’s old master, the blind Okada, asking him to talk to “Saburo.” Jiro soon discovers that Okada is really Saburo and that he operates through human “puppets” such as Yoshida.

When Jiro leaves the theater to search for his mother and Kinshi, he is plunged into a riot that leaves much of the town in flames. There, he encounters his father, who is not really ill and who is really one of Saburo’s men. Jiro survives by disguising himself as a fireman and helps his mother and Kinshi return to the theater. Because of Jiro’s loyalty to Okada, Isako will be allowed to live at the Hanaza. Kinshi, whose right hand has been cut off during the riot, will be apprenticed to Okada, and Jiro, who has proved his talents in the theater and his courage in the outside world, will continue to train as a puppeteer under Yoshida.

Critical Context

The Master Puppeteer, Katherine Paterson’s third novel, was her first to gain widespread critical acclaim and attention. In 1977, it received the National Book Award for Children’s Literature and was a runner-up for the Edgar Allan Poe Award from the Mystery Writers of America. In 1982, the book was also a finalist for an American Book Award. Like Paterson’s two earlier novels, The Sign of the Chrysanthemum (1973) and Of Nightingales That Weep (1974), The Master Puppeteer is a historical novel set in Japan, a country where Paterson studied and taught for several years and where she saw Bunraku theater firsthand. In writing the novel, she returned to Japan to do research, including interviewing a modern Japanese puppeteer.

The book also looks forward to Paterson’s later novels, such as the Newbery Medal winners Bridge to Terabithia (1977) and Jacob Have I Loved (1980), whose protagonists, like Jiro, overcome somewhat dysfunctional families and difficult social situations to find true friendship and discover their own special talents. Like a number of other young adult novels, including Elizabeth de Trevino’s I, Juan de Pareja (1966) and Patricia MacLachlan’s The Facts and Fictions of Mina Pratt (1988), The Master Puppeteer is a Künstlerroman in which its protagonist’s growth as an artist leads to self-understanding and maturation. Because of its unique combination of adventure, mystery, historical fiction, and psychological realism, the novel continues to be popular and is an important part of Paterson’s continued contribution to literature for young people.