Tsunami Girl
As seen:
By Julian Sedgwick, and and, Chie Kutsuwada
avg rating
11 reviews
SHORTLISTED for the CARNEGIE GREENAWAY AWARD 2022
Fifteen-year-old Yuki is struggling at school with her confidence, and goes to Japan to stay with her grandfather, a well-known manga artist and to whom she is very close. But during her visit, a calamitous event occurs – the March 2011 East Coast Earthquake and Tsunami – and her beloved Grandpa is lost.
Yuki and her friend Taka must make sense of the terrible situation and come to terms with the loss of their life as they knew it – and see that through renewal and with resilience, they can emerge from this tragedy with optimism for the future. Interwoven with Japanese folk tales, modern-day ghost stories, and the creation of her very own vibrant manga hero, Yuki finds the courage to overcome extraordinary odds, and take her first steps into the world that lies beyond catastrophe.
Told through both prose and manga, this story for young adults will touch the heart of any reader.
‘Impressive and Original’ – Financial Times
‘Breathtakingly Powerful’ – LoveReading
Reviews
I think that this was an incredibly moving book.
I found the interaction between the manga and the writing a bit clunky - but perhaps that's because I'm not used to that style. I remember the tsunami and this reminded me of how horrendous and frightening it really was.
It was very good but the start was boring
This book is a bit of a slow burner and you get to know the main characters Yuki vety gently. It is only when she is faced with disaster that the reader really identifies with her and really wills her on through all her struggles. The book is interspersed with Manga chapters which are beautifully illustrated and a visual delight. There are some haunting fantasy moments and the reader is certainly taken on a journey.
This book is a bit of a slow burner and you get to know the main characters Yuki vety gently. It is only when she is faced with disaster that the reader really identifieswith her a
A great read. Part prose part manga a really thought provoking and gripping read.
A beautiful, poignant story set before, during and after the tsunami that hit Japan in 2011. The text is complimented by beautiful manga cartoons that depict the fantasy world created by the protagonist Yuki. Yuki does not just have to deal with the trauma of the tsunami, but she suffers severe survivors guilt because she survived when her Grandad didn't. She doesn't get closure because her grandfather's body isn't found and it is assumed he has been swept out to sea. The books deals sensitively and effectively with grief and the effect of posttraumatic stress. Not one for younger readers, but one for older teens and those who are fans of Manga.
Overall I loved the combination of manga style chapters interspersed with prose. However, I personally didn't find the characters particularly engaging. From about the middle of the book, it became a bot far fetched for me and I didn't really enjoy it after that point. There were a few parts where I was expecting a predictable twist, but it didn't happen and I was glad about that as I felt those parts where it remained realistic were true to life and made the book better.
I would recommend this to those pupils who love manga but want to branch out into some more challenging reading.
I found it quite difficult to get into this book; the action felt rushed, as did the introduction of characters, however, as the novel progressed I found it to be authentic and realistic with the way it portrayed the protagonist's grief.
I liked the mixture of Manga and prose, I thought it aided the story and the setting and made it more accessible.
The story was emotive and hard to read in places, though definitely worth the emotional heartache.
With the amount of research behind this, this book was bound to be good and it didn't disappoint. I can remember the Tsunami happening, and although the story is fiction, the events are not.
