It's New Year's Day, in a 1958 Japanese "twelve months of the year" children's reader. More literally, the title is something like, "Society [or, public life] through the twelve months." The book actually begins in April, with the start of the school year, and covers the milestones of the year for children and families.
The full-color, detailed plate above is one of only three, in this book of mixed illustration styles.
Covers:
Endpapers:
The text is illustrated in a spare, woodcut-like style, in limited colors. So the other New Year's activities include traditional games (and a giant pot of mochi):
This is just over a dozen years since the war's end, and most Japanese families are still fairly poor. The book looks like it was produced cheaply, but the couple of cheerful full-color plates do seem to signal that life is getting better.
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