While I Was Away

Named one of New York Public Library's & Bank Street's Best Books of the Year! 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 family’s roots. When twelve-year-old Waka’s parents suspect she can’t 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 with reading and writing in kanji, doesn’t 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 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? Fish Out of Water: Waka goes from being the "smart Japanese girl" in her Kansas classroom to the "dumb foreigner" in Tokyo, where even the simplest daily tasks are a challenge. Living with a Stranger: Sent to live for months with her strict and distant grandmother, Obaasama, Waka must navigate a complicated new family dynamic all on her own. Culture Shock: From facing classmates who make fun of her to learning a new set of social rules, this story captures the experience of being an outsider in the country of your parents’ birth. Finding Where You Belong: A powerful and relatable middle grade memoir about discovering your own identity between two different worlds and finding the real meaning of home.