A Tale for the Time Being
In this story, we meet sixteen year-old Nao, and her grandmother, Jiko, who happens to be a Buddhist nun. Nao was born in California and is now living in Japan with her family after her father lost his job as a Silicone Valley computer programmer. We get to know Nao and her family through her journal after it washes ashore on a remote island across the Pacific, sealed in a plastic bag enclosed in a Hello Kitty lunch box. The finder of this treasure, Ruth, becomes obsessed with finding Nao and her family members in order to know if they survived the 2011 tsunami. Without knowing Nao’s fate the reader joins with her family as grandmother Jiko (the grandmother we should all have) teaches patience, self-acceptance, loss, love, and the importance of the here and now, through her Buddhist wisdom.