While I Was Away

Written by Waka T. Brown

Narrated by Chieko Hidaka

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?

• Language: English
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Release date: Jan 26, 2021
• ISBN: 9780063017146

Waka T. Brown

Waka T. Brown was the first American born in her family. She is a Stanford graduate with a master’s degree in secondary education. 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 US-Japan Foundation and EngageAsia’s national 2019 Elgin Heinz Outstanding Teacher award for her groundbreaking endeavors in teaching about US-Japan relations to high school students in Japan and promoting cultural exchange awareness. She lives with her family in Portland, Oregon.

Reviews for While I Was Away

[Becky Baumgartner · Rating: 4 out of 5 stars]

Waka Brown's memoir of her 5 months in Japan as a middle schooler. Even though her experience was decades ago, her story will resonate with immigrant kids and third culture kids of all ages. Watching her navigate cultures and grow through her experience were my favorite parts. A fantastic autobiography. I have a physical copy of this too, but being able to hear the correct Japanese pronunciations of things made the story come to life that much more. Highly recommended.