[Welcome to the EL Book Introductions series. These posts are all short (<180 words) introductions/reviews of books in the EL library. They focus on telling you what we think will be interesting for you, a college student and English learner, so use them to help you find the right book for you. You can also use the tags to find books about topics you might be interested in.]
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The Big Wave is a very, very short book that I think is worth your time. It was written by Pearl S. Buck, a woman who lived in Japan and China before World War 2 and wrote stories about East Asian culture. Her most famous novel is The Good Earth 『大地』, which is about a Chinese farming family.
This book is about two Japanese boys who survive a terrible tsunami. It is told like a folktale, using simple sentences and mostly easy vocabulary. However, the meaning and emotions behind the story are more complex. This is book is not too hard to read, but you can think about it a lot afterwards. Maybe you disagree with the author’s conclusion?
Another reason to recommend this book is that it is an example of “culturally-familiar learning material” (文化的親和性ある教材). Because you know about Japan and Japanese culture, it can be easier to read and enjoy that something foreign. This is similar to “learning what you already know,” which I have mentioned several times in this blog before.
My two cents: While this is a very interesting book, a close reading can show something about orientalism, too. How did this westerner look at Japan? How did she treat it differently from the west?
