Charming stories (folk tales, legends) with superlative illustrations that manage to capture the quality of children's book, Japanese-ness, fairy tale, all imbued with a tender gentleness that's hard to describe (and harder to achieve). I had the first volume as a child and loved it. The second volume (same author, same illustrator) is near the same quality ... but of course coming to it as an adult I'll respond a little differently.
(Note: I'm a writer, so I suffer when I offer fewer than five stars. But these aren't ratings of quality, they're a subjective account of how much I liked the book: 5* = an unalloyed pleasure from start to finish, 4* = enjoyed it, 3* = readable but not thrilling, 2* = disappointing, and 1* = hated it.