{"product_id":"while-i-was-away-a-new-york-public-library-best-book-about-culture-shock-and-finding-home-for-children-ages-8-12","title":"While I Was Away: A New York Public Library Best Book about Culture Shock and Finding Home for Children (Ages 8-12)","description":"Named one of New York Public Library's \u0026amp; Bank Street's Best Books of the Year!\nThe 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.\nWhen 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.\nIn 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.\nIf 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?\u003cbr\u003eASIN: 0063017113\u003cbr\u003eVSKU: HBSV.0063017113.G\u003cbr\u003eCondition: Good\u003cbr\u003eAuthor\/Artist:Brown, Waka T.\u003cbr\u003eBinding: Hardcover\u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eNote:\u003c\/b\u003e Any images shown are stock photographs and product may differ from what is shown.  \u003cbr\u003e\u003cb\u003eCondition Notes\u003c\/b\u003e: Book  is in good condition and has some writing, underlining, and or highlighting inside. Cover may have some cosmetic wear.  \u003cbr\u003e","brand":"The Happy Book Stack ","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":52344618680621,"sku":"HBSV.0063017113.G","price":5.57,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":true}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0855\/6799\/6205\/files\/0063017113-0.jpg?v=1788554089","url":"https:\/\/www.thehappybookstack.com\/products\/while-i-was-away-a-new-york-public-library-best-book-about-culture-shock-and-finding-home-for-children-ages-8-12","provider":"The Happy Book Stack ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}