I found a Japanese children's book about selective mutism. Issho ni asobo vamos brincar (in English, let's play with me!), published in 2003. It's a fiction novel written by Etsuko Yamamoto.
The main characters of the story are two children. One is a third-grade Brazilian girl named Juliana. She transferred to an elementary school in Japan. But she faces difficulties in speaking Japanese. The other is her classmate named Seiya. He suffers from selective mutism.
The story revolves around Juliana and Seiya. The heart of the story is Seiya's relationship with Juliana.
Both Juliana and Seiya have difficulties in speaking, although their problems are different. When it comes to people who have language problems in fiction, I recall a short story "Hankachi," written by Kiyoshi Shigematsu. Hankachi is included in the book Aoi Tori, a collection of short stories. The main characters of the story are one teacher and one student. The teacher has a stutter problem. On the other hand, the student suffers from selective mutism. The center of the story is their relationship.
I have mixed feeling about this. I guess writers of both stories aim to explore meaning of verbal communication by writing people who can't speak well. But I don't want to group them together. Selective mutism is different from stuttering and lack of language knowledge.
But I guess this book may give solace to children with selective mutism. They may feel they are not alone when they finish reading the book.
