02480cam a2200469 i 4500 609073537 TxAuBib 20221111120000.0 200504s2021||||||||||||||||||||||||eng|u 2020945260 9780063017115 hardcover 0063017113 hardcover (OCoLC)1153074353 TxAuBib rda Brown, Waka T., author. While I was away / Waka T. Brown. First edition. New York, NY : Quill Tree Books, an imprint of HarperCollinsPublishers, [2021] ©2021. 310 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm. txt rdacontent n rdamedia nc rdacarrier When twelve-year-old Waka's parents suspect she can't understand basic Japanese they speak to her, they make the 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? Ages 8-12. Accelerated Reader AR MG 5.1 10 511952. 20221111. Brown, Waka T Juvenile literature. Japanese Americans Biography Juvenile literature. Japanese American children Juvenile literature. Grandmothers Juvenile literature. Culture shock Juvenile literature. Intercultural communication Juvenile literature. Japanese Americans. Families. Grandparent and child. Chinese characters Japan. Tokyo (Japan) Social life and customs Juvenile literature. Tokyo (Japan.) Biographies. Personal narratives.