Here's the cover of 昭和の子ども生活絵図鑑 (Shōwa no kodomo seikatsu e zukan), created by a husband-and-wife team, Harumi Nagata (illustrator) and Tatsu Okunari (writer).
I picked it because I like looking at old stuff, and the book was only 56 pages long. Also, I had read Tetsuko Kuroyanagi's childhood autobiography last year (Madogiwa no Totto-chan) and felt this picture book would help me better imagine scenes of her childhood.
The Shōwa period is 1926 to 1989, but the authors of Shōwa no kodomo focus on the years of their own childhood, 1946 to 1965. Their aim was to capture the nostalgic past, when children still played marbles and when the "Three Sacred Treasures" (TV, fridge, washing machine) first emerged.
I enjoyed dwelling on lively panaromas of daily life in different places, e.g. candy shop, classroom, veranda of the house, downtown, and so on.
The book also shows toys and games of the period. I was surprised that Japanese children back then played games I knew as a child decades later, like the ones pictured below.
As for my reading process:
When I encounter unfamiliar words, I try to guess what they mean before checking the dictionary.
I know I'll probably forget how to read the kanji I just looked up, but that's okay. I don't write them down to review later, partly because I don't need to use them immediately. Also, my hope is that accumulated exposure to the same word will help me remember it eventually.
With more familiar words, I try to think of the most appropriate English equivalent. Making an effort to translate into English keeps my brain oiled for English output. It's one thing to understand the Japanese. It's another thing to keep the English up to par, and I don't want to neglect that!