About: David Battino grew up in an Ohio village with only six traffic lights but lots of community theater. By the time he left for Oberlin College, he had performed in numerous plays, musicals, choirs, and bands. David graduated with a major in philosophy and a renewed love for making music. Flying to California on a one-way ticket, he did live sound design for theater and worked at a big recording studio. He then spent a year in Japan as a Henry Luce Scholar, studying traditional Japanese instruments while also serving as a teen idol producer in Warner Bros' Tokyo office.

David is the founding editor of Music & Computers magazine, the co-author of The Art of Digital Music, and the audio editor for the O’Reilly Digital Media site. In 2003, he joined his wife Hazuki Kataoka to write and publish the Storycard Theater series of children’s books, neatly combining his affinity for writing, performing, web design, and Japanese culture.

Hazuki Kataoka grew up in Tokyo, Japan, and moved to California to attend college. She graduated from San Jose State University with a major in advertising and marketing. After four years as a reporter for a Japanese newspaper in Los Angeles, Hazuki returned to Northern California to work as a licensing coordinator for a major video game company. When her first son was born, she became increasingly disturbed by the violence in video games. She left the game industry to found her own international communications business, Leaf Moon Arts.

In 2003, Leaf Moon Arts developed the Storycard Theater series of books to bring the joy of Japanese kamishibai storytelling to American children. Storycard Theater won the 2004 Dr. Toy Award for Top 10 Creative Products in the country. Hazuki and her husband David Battino regularly perform their stories around the San Francisco Bay area.

Kamishibai: Japanese Storycard Theater
Classic folktales told with kamishibai ("paper theater") storycards enchant kids of all ages. Japanese street performers popularized this format in the days before television.