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Mohrbooks Literary Agency
Sebastian Ritscher |
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WHILE I WAS AWAY
n this memorable and empowering middle grade memoir by debut author Waka Brown, a twelve-year-old girl's parents send her to Japan for several months to reconnect with her culture, but what follows is a summer she'll never forget.
When twelve-year-old Waka's parents fear she's can't understand basic Japanese, they make the drastic decision to ship her to Tokyo to live with a strict grandmother she barely knows, attend a Japanese public school, and immerse herself in the language. Goodbye friends, sixth grade graduation, and her All-American summer vacation.
Plucked from her straight-A-student life in rural Kansas, Waka is sent halfway across the globe where she embarks on what feels like the hardest five months of her life. Here, she must overcome her embarrassingly low reading levels, learn the incredibly complicated writing system called kanji, survive the social gauntlet of classroom clique politics, and attempt to understand her standoffish grandmother, Obaasama. Even though this is the country her parents came from, Waka has never felt more like an outsider.
If she's always been the "smart Japanese girl" in America but is now the "dumb foreigner" in Japan, where is home... and who will Waka be when she finds it?
Waka T. Brown was the first American born in her family. She is a Stanford graduate with a Master's in Secondary Education. With her background, she's worked to further U.S.-Japan relations, promoting cultural exchange and awareness. She's 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 Studies' national Franklin Buchanan Prize. She's also been awarded the U.S.-Japan Foundation and EngageAsia's national 2019 Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher award for her groundbreaking endeavors in teaching about U.S.-Japan relations to high school students in Japan. While I Was Away is her memoir, and also her debut. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.
Plucked from her straight-A-student life in rural Kansas, Waka is sent halfway across the globe where she embarks on what feels like the hardest five months of her life. Here, she must overcome her embarrassingly low reading levels, learn the incredibly complicated writing system called kanji, survive the social gauntlet of classroom clique politics, and attempt to understand her standoffish grandmother, Obaasama. Even though this is the country her parents came from, Waka has never felt more like an outsider.
If she's always been the "smart Japanese girl" in America but is now the "dumb foreigner" in Japan, where is home... and who will Waka be when she finds it?
Waka T. Brown was the first American born in her family. She is a Stanford graduate with a Master's in Secondary Education. With her background, she's worked to further U.S.-Japan relations, promoting cultural exchange and awareness. She's 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 Studies' national Franklin Buchanan Prize. She's also been awarded the U.S.-Japan Foundation and EngageAsia's national 2019 Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher award for her groundbreaking endeavors in teaching about U.S.-Japan relations to high school students in Japan. While I Was Away is her memoir, and also her debut. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.
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Book
Published 2021-01-01 by HarperCollins |