As Japan suffers from the COVID-19 Pandemic, the government has asked people to quarantine themselves. This is all to help flatten the curve and lessen new infections. And to help out in getting people to stay indoors, Aoi Yuuki has announced that she’ll be reading children’s books for kids and their parents who are stuck at home.

She also stated that her first project is Nankichi Niimi’s Buying Mittens. Niimi released it in 1943, the same year as the author’s death. It received an English translation in 1999, and Hawaii Press describes it as:

When a cold winter comes to the forest, a little fox awakens one morning to the magic of a first snowfall. His romp in the snow is cut short, however, when his cold, wet paws turn peony colored. What he needs, his mother decides, are some woolen mittens the size of his little paws.

So begins an overnight journey into a village where humans live to buy a pair of mittens and where, along the way, the little fox learns that people are more complicated creatures than he thought.

Buying Mittens is a classic story that has charmed Japanese children for generations. Written by one of Japan’s most beloved authors, it has the timeless quality of a folktale that will speak across cultures. Enchanting illustrations illuminate this gentle tale of a mother’s tenderness and a child’s new discoveries.

Apparently, a foreign president inspired her agfter she heard that he would read picture books aloud for children stuck at home.

Fans know the seiyuu best for her role as Madoka Kaname in madoka Magica, as well as Tanya Degurechaff in Saga of Tanya the Evil.