Product Description
Ojiisan, the oldest and wealthiest man in the village, doesn’t join the others at the rice ceremony. Instead he watches from his balcony. He feels something is coming—something he can’t describe. When he sees the monster wave pulling away from the beach, he knows. Tsunami! But the villagers below can’t see the danger. Will Ojiisan risk everything he has to save them? Can he? Illustrated in stunning collage by Caldecott winner Ed Young, here is the unforgettable story of how one man’s simple sacrifi ce saved hundreds of lives. An extraordinary celebration of both the power of nature and the power each of us holds within.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 5.0 based on 12 reviews)

This is a beautifully told Japanese legend that will mesmerize the adult reader and widen the eyes of the young! by D. Fowler (Vermont)

5 Stars
September 23, 2009
Ojiisan was a simple man living in Japan long, long ago. His name meant "grandfather." One day when his family was preparing to go to a festival, he refused to go. He sensed something was very wrong so he and his grandson, Tada stayed behind. As he watched the festival below, he felt the earth rumble beneath the soles of his feet. An earthquake was stirring the earth beneath his feet. No one was alarmed, but somehow "Ojiisan, who had felt hundreds of earthquakes in his time, thought this shock strange." The sea "darkened suddenly and was moving against the wind." It was a "Tsunami-the monster wave." Ojiisan knew that something had to be done to rescue the villagers down below. They were running to the sea to watch instead of running away from it to save themselves. He ran to his own precious rice fields and sadly set them on fire. Would the four hundred souls down below rush to his aid? If they rushed to save his fields, perhaps they would unknowingly save their own lives! This is a beautifully told Japanese legend that will mesmerize the adult reader and widen the eyes of the young. I enjoyed the tale and the combination of gouache, pastel painting and collage artwork was unusual and stunning. This is a charming story that illustrates the fact that we, as human beings, are all in the same boat and need to help one another.

Richie's Picks: TSUNAMI! by Richie Partington (Sebastopol, CA United States)

5 Stars
August 27, 2009
Those first moments of approaching the ocean after not having been swimming in it for a couple of years had me feeling a momentary tinge of shyness toward it. There is that sense of enormity and foreverness and hidden secrets. But then it reached out and splashed my ankles and knees and -- proceeding forward -- I was suddenly and thoroughly immersed in it, swimming beyond the breakers, and it was my old friend, holding me aloft with its buoyant, salty density. All of those feelings and memories embedded so deeply in me came pouring out: of being a little kid all scratchy with sand in the backseat of an ancient station wagon heading home with New York Top Forty on the radio, still feeling, for hours to come and into that night's sleep, the never-ending sway and tug of the sea bouncing me around and around despite its having -- for the moment -- receded out of sight and scent to be replaced by the moist and verdant midsummer's evening of fireflies and hide-and-seek and a warm shower and soft pajamas. A week ago I was one with the ocean, thousands of miles from where I sit this morning. I left my beloved soulmate back there, and wish in all of my being that I was there right now. I consider it one of the most fortunate circumstances of birth that I was born near the sea and, throughout childhood, accumulated so many layers of sweet memories of being in it, memories that cause me to find myself back at the shores of eastern Long Island again and again just as surely as if I were a bird born with that instinctual knowledge of where one is forever compelled to return to. Long before reading Pearl Buck's THE BIG WAVE for a junior high English class, I'd had powerful, reoccurring dreams of the sea pulling way out, revealing the naked ocean floor, and then crashing furiously back in to shore. Reading THE BIG WAVE merely accentuated those dreams. To look at the stunning cover of TSUNAMI!, the powerful image of a debris-bespeckled gigantic wave about to crash down, is to understand why this book so thoroughly and unceasingly calls to me after having spent recent days and all those long-ago days in and along the ocean. I've now been sitting here staring at Ed Young's amazing cover art for a ridiculous number of minutes. TSUNAMI! is adapted from a 1897 story "A Living God" by Lafcadio Hearn. It is the tale of Ojiisan (meaning grandfather), a wise old rice farmer who lived on a mountainside near the sea, a man who lives simply despite being the oldest and wealthiest person in his village. Ojiisan has a premonition that causes him to pass up a village celebration and, sure enough, an earthquake occurs. Then the sea recedes and the villagers run in wonderment to the beach and even beyond it to watch the sea. Knowing they are in immanent danger, but being too far away to call them back, Ojiisan brings all of the villagers running up the hill by setting fire to his rice crop, purposely and selflessly destroying his life's fortune for the sake of saving his neighbors. "Through the twilight, a dark shadow grew larger and larger, racing toward the coast. The long darkness was the returning se, as high as a cliff and as wide as the sky, heading for the village with lightning speed." Caldecott Medalist Ed Young is at his best here; his work is a truly inspired artistic achievement rendered through utilizing combinations of gouache, pastel, and collage to vividly bring the ocean, the village, and the fire all to life. TSUNAMI! is powerful and notable in its lesson of what one person can do to change the world and in its images which so thoroughly and successfully capture the elemental forces of our world.

a great story about selflessness and the power of a tsunami by Make it Funny (San Francisco, CA)

5 Stars
August 15, 2009
I loved the story about how Ojiisan sacraficed his own wealth to save 400 people in his village from the ravage of a tsunami. The story is short, but well written, with the words carefully and purposefully chosen. The illustrations are works of art. For some reason, my 6 year old is fascinated by pictures of storms and the powers of the elements. It helps that the story states that a tsunami is not a common occurrence, so my kid is not that frightened of it.

Griping story with intense illustrations by P. Bartell (Boulder, CO United States)

4 Stars
July 20, 2009
When my three year old enjoys a book she asks for it multiple times in a day, as was the case recently with "Tsunami". While she doesn't understand how an earthquake works or what happens in an actual tsunami, she understands how Ojiisan saves the villagers and his need to signal them using fire. I'm sure she'll enjoy this book for many years to come. So many books for children include imagery and talk of monsters, scary things in the dark, and other subjects that I avoid as bedtime stories. Kids have active imaginations, and it's good to engage them in make-believe, but there is a need for realism and truthful stories about actual challenges, both positive and negative. I can imagine using this book as a teaching tool the next time there is a tsunami that causes destruction somewhere in the world.

Pensive, suspenseful, heart-warming by Lisa Barker

5 Stars
June 24, 2009
A touching and true story with unbelievable illustrations by Ed Young using cut and torn paper. Teaches children about sacrificial love of neighbor without getting in the way of the story - pensive, suspenseful, heart-warming. Very well done.

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