"The Big Wave" by Pearl Buck

"About 9,500 people are unaccounted for in the town of Minamisanriku in Miyagi Prefecture following Friday's powerful earthquake, prefectural officials said Saturday.

The figure is more than half of the population of about 17,000 in the town on the Pacific coast, they said."---Kyodo News (3-12-11)

Generations of children have read "The Big Wave," Pearl S. Buck's famous 1948 story about a Japanese tsunami and its aftermath. I read this story as a child almost 50 years ago, but I still remember this powerful tale about the Japanese character. I thought of this story today because of the horrible earthquakes and tsunamis in Japan which have claimed so many lives.

Listen to NPR's Jacki Lyden review Nobel prize-winning author Pearl S. Buck's children's story "The Big Wave."