" To be a leprosy patient in 1940s Japan meant to be a societal outcast, quarantined on an island leprosarium with others afflicted with the disease. Jeff Talarigo gives a voice to Miss Fuji, Mr. Shitayama, Miss Min, Mr. Nagame, and his other characters; the voice that their society had long denied them. Thru a series of anecdotes, each introduced by the description of a catalogued artifact from the leprosarium, we glimpse their daily lives, experience the strength of human spirit that triumphs in this grim place, and see how advances in medicine and changes in social attitudes very slowly and gradually improve their lot, thru the decades of the 1950s thru the 1980s. For the Audio Book, Jennifer Ikeda speaks wonderfully as Miss Fuji, the young pearl diver of the book's title, who is brought to the island in 1948 at age nineteen, and who learns important lessons about living the truth, community, and solidarity. "
— Sue, 2/16/2014