The Tale of the Utterly Gutsy Shinobi

The was Jiraiya's first book, written while training the Ame Orphans. The story follows the adventures of a ninja named Naruto, a name Jiraiya came up with while eating ramen. The main character, Naruto, never gives up and vows to break the "curse" that was mentioned in the story. The mentioned "curse" represents the 'vicious cycles' of war, conflict and hatred that occupies the Ninja world that Nagato once spoke to Jiraiya about.

Because of this, the book is dedicated to Nagato. Minato Namikaze notes that the Naruto in the story is very much like Jiraiya. For this reason he thought it was a very good book, though Jiraiya pointed out that it didn't sell very well; he even had a book signing which not a single person showed up to.

Because he enjoyed the book so much, Minato chose to name his as-yet-then unborn son after the character of Naruto in the story, in the hopes that his son would too grow up to be just like the protagonist. Even though Naruto was not aware of this until sixteen years after his birth, he nevertheless is just like the protagonist. When he points this out to Nagato during the invasion of Pain, Naruto convinces him to abandon his goals of war and believe in breaking the curse like he once did.

Trivia

 * When Naruto, Nagato, and Minato read the book, each students of Jiraiya, they each imagined themselves as the Naruto in the book.
 * The enemy in the novel, an unnamed ninja from an unspecified village, represented by a question mark, is also envisioned differently by the characters; Naruto and Minato imagines the character as wearing clothing similar in style to that worn by both Sasuke Uchiha and the members of Akatsuki, while Nagato imagines the character as wearing a uniform similar to that of a Konohagakure shinobi.
 * The question mark symbol in the enemy's forehead protector is similar to the symbol of Moyagakure, according the forehead protectors of Aniki, Mo and Ya. However, they appear just in the anime.
 * In the anime, the first Animal Path may have been the inspiration for the Evil Ninja.