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4.11 AVERAGE
4.11 AVERAGE
This way a joy to read with my middle school daughter as we completed a geography unit in Japan. It captures Japanese culture, middle school angst, and complicated family relationships in a story that is engrossing start to finish. We finished this one ahead of schedule because there were days we just couldn’t put it down. I especially enjoyed learning about the kanji, shuuji, and the food!
emotional
lighthearted
relaxing
slow-paced
Cute memoir. Kinda boring, but it picks up by the end.
While I Was Away is a story full of emotion and humour. The writing made it feel really genuine and alive, and the little bits, like the written letters, made it feel really personal. I also liked how I was able to learn a little bit about the 80s and Japanese culture.
It’s not often I have come across a middle grade memoir, and this one was exceptional!! Waka is a twelve year old Japanese American girl growing up in Kansas. One day when she ignores her mother’s directions in Japanese to help fold the laundry, her mother becomes concerned that Waka is forgetting Japanese. Her family decides to send her to Japan to live with her grandmother for 5 months and to attend school to practice her Japanese. This story was so immersive, I felt like I was going to school with Waka and learning the culture and customs, too. Her experiences with friendship, family, alone-ness, and cultural identity are so relatable as someone with mixed heritage. I found her experiences of self growth painful, awkward, beautiful, and joyful. The relationship Waka has with her grandmother while complicated, was so profound and moving. I cried, a lot, at the end.
This autobiography reads like a middle grade fiction book. I will review in that way. The characters are well developed and the plot moves at a reasonable pace. I liked the relationship that develops between Waka and her grandmother. Even the flaws in the relationship. I also liked how Waka learned that losing herself to a group was not worth it.
emotional
funny
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced
A story about a Japanese American girl who is sent to Japan to go to school for awhile to learn the Japanese culture of her family. She really doesn't want to go, but ends up learning a lot, meeting new friends and growing her relationship with her grandmother.
My favorite part in this story was the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter. Even though the Japanese culture in people makes them seem more proper and not so touchy feely like us Americans, you could see the emotions play out in the authors writing and I loved that.
This is a great story to learn more about Japan culture and it was even sprinkled with Japanese words along the way.
My favorite part in this story was the relationship between grandmother and granddaughter. Even though the Japanese culture in people makes them seem more proper and not so touchy feely like us Americans, you could see the emotions play out in the authors writing and I loved that.
This is a great story to learn more about Japan culture and it was even sprinkled with Japanese words along the way.
funny
informative
lighthearted
reflective
relaxing
medium-paced
What a compelling look at a bicultural experience. When Brown was a preteen, her parents decided that her Japanese wasn't up to snuff and sent her to spend five months with her grandmother—attending a Japanese school and generally connecting with her family's culture in a way that was not possible in Kansas. Brown was fortunate in that not only did she already speak Japanese well, her Japanese teachers were prepared to meet her where she was in terms of reading and writing skills.
There are natural threads of tension woven throughout, from Brown's trepidation over living with her grandmother (who has had a hard life and is known in the family as a forbidding figure) to how to manage a different schoolmate social structure than she's used to in Kansas to whether Brown's Japanese will improve to a level she—and her family—is satisfied with. This definitely feels like a book that should make its way to many middle school and high school libraries.
There are natural threads of tension woven throughout, from Brown's trepidation over living with her grandmother (who has had a hard life and is known in the family as a forbidding figure) to how to manage a different schoolmate social structure than she's used to in Kansas to whether Brown's Japanese will improve to a level she—and her family—is satisfied with. This definitely feels like a book that should make its way to many middle school and high school libraries.
adventurous
informative
lighthearted
reflective
fast-paced