While I Was Away

A grandmother unfairly yells at and shames her granddaughter after first locking her out of her home. Stories are told of a father physically abusing his daughter by berating her, burning her with a cattle iron, and locking her outside at night in the cold. Mention of a mother hitting her children with scissor handles and brooms. A teacher slaps a boy's head as punishment for being inappropriate. This happens often, but is shown directly only a few times. A brief story of a married couple who drank too much liquor and fought a lot. Some instances of boys and girls teasing a girl because she can't speak Japanese as well as they can. They also call her "Gaijin," "foreigner," and "pervert/peeper" (because she accidentally walks into the boys' changing rooms, also due to not being completely fluent in Japanese). An older woman mentions a bad dream where skeletons and wolves "chomp on her heart."

Some girls talk about being "into boys" and one asks a boy if he'd "go with" her. A girl is called "pervert" and "peeping Jane" because she accidentally walks into the boys' changing rooms at a swimming pool. A girl writes a small joke about boys' "nuts" in a letter written home to a friend.

"Fart-faced butthead," "foreigner," "pig-faced jerk," "pervert," and "GOD!"

A teacher smokes cigarettes in front of his student while tutoring her. Adults are occasionally seen smoking cigarettes. Mention of a married couple who drank too much.

Parents need to know that Waka T. Brown's While I Was Away is a middle grade memoir set in 1984. It follows 12-year-old Waka, a Japanese American girl who's enjoying her life in Kansas, but her parents worry that Waka isn't learning Japanese enough. So they decide to send her to Japan for the summer, where she can go to school (Japanese children go to school during the summer) and get better at speaking, writing, and reading Japanese. She'll also live with her grandmother, Obaasama. Japanese kids show bullying behavior toward Waka, who cannot speak or understand Japanese as well as they can. They call her "foreigner," "Gaijin (outside person)," and other bad names. They make fun of the way she mistakes certain words. There are a few moments of sudden violence: Obaasama surprisingly yelling at Waka for something she didn't do, Obaasama's story of how she was physically abused as a child (burned by a cattle iron, locked outside in cold), and the occasional head slap from teachers. Some girls joke about "liking boys." Language includes: "Fart-faced butthead," "pig-faced jerk," "foreigner," "Gaijin," "pervert," and "GOD!"