Maya lives with her Japanese father and American mother in Japan. Her grandmother and Great Grandfather live nearby. Maya is in school on March 11, 2011 when an earthquake hits off the Japanese coast, followed by a tsunami and damage to a nuclear plant. Her family is safe and intact, but Maya is scared as the aftershocks keep coming for days and weeks. She makes paper cranes and writes messages to “The People in the Northeast” to help her cope.

Written in verse, the author uses fonts and color to show the aftershocks and Maya’s feelings. Dates at the top and timestamps for the aftershocks make you feel the anxiousness that Maya was feeling. Maya and the other characters in the story of different ways of coping and the story shows us that we all have different ways of getting through a disaster.