While I Was Away
ืืืืข ืขื ืืกืคืจ ืืืืืืืื ืืื
The Farewell meets Erin Entrada Kelly's Blackbird Fly in this empowering middle grade memoir from debut author Waka T. Brown, who takes readers on a journey to 1980s Japan, where she was sent as a child to reconnect to her familyโs roots.
When twelve-year-old Wakaโs parents suspect she canโt understand the basic Japanese they speak to her, they make a drastic decision to send her to Tokyo to live for several months with her strict grandmother. Forced to say goodbye to her friends and what would have been her summer vacation, Waka is plucked from her straight-A-student life in rural Kansas and flown across the globe, where she faces the culture shock of a lifetime.
In Japan, Waka struggles withย reading and writing in kanji, doesnโt quite mesh with her complicated and distant Obaasama, and gets made fun of by the students in her Japanese public-school classes. Even though this is the country her parents came from, Waka has never felt more like an outsider.
If sheโs always been the โsmart Japanese girlโ in America but is now the โdumb foreignerโ in Japan, where is home...and who will Waka be when she finds it?
ืืืจืืืื ืืืืงืืจืืช
ืขื ืืืืืจ
Waka T. Brown was the first American born in her family. She is a Stanford graduate with a masterโs degree in secondary education. Sheโs currently an instructor at the Stanford Program on International and Cross-Cultural Education (SPICE), authoring curriculum on several international topics and winning the Association for Asian Studiesโ national Franklin R. Buchanan Prize. Sheโs also been awarded the United StatesโJapan Foundation and EngageAsiaโs national 2019 Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher Award for her groundbreaking endeavors in teaching about US-Japan relations to high school students in Japan and promoting cultural exchange awareness. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.
