The Traveling Sketchbook
An American Kid Discovers Japan
by
Book Details
Language :
English
Publication Date :
10/17/2002
Format :
E-Book
Dimensions :
E-Book
Page Count :
212
ISBN :
9781403370815
Format :
Softcover
Dimensions :
6x9
Page Count :
212
ISBN :
9781403370822
About the Book
This book is based on my childhood experiences in 1950’s
Japan. Japan has changed enormously since those postwar days of poverty. Anne,
the heroine, encounters this along with her discoveries of beautiful gardens.
Would an American child moving to Japan with her family discover the same things
that Anne discovered? Certainly some of the “opposites” Anne encountered
are still very true. The Japanese do many things differently from us. However,
other things have changed. No average American household could afford to hire
servants in Japan today. But if a Japanese child from a middle-income family
were to come to this country, she would be amazed to discover that her family
could afford to live in a huge house with a beautiful lawn! She would discover
a new freedom making friends the American way. Her ways of looking at the world
would be expanded. That is the point of the book.
When I first started this book around 1989 there were no books
for children that I could find on the subject of an American child integrating
into a foreign culture. There were plenty on the subject of a foreign child
trying to adjust to the American culture.
About the Author
Fran Kramer has had a lifelong love of Asia. As a child,
she lived in Japan with her family and then returned as an adult in the 1980’s
working for Maryknoll as a consultant promoting the Hospice Movement and better
care for terminally ill people. Fran did all her professional work in Japanese
to include facilitating bereavement groups, and giving talks to physicians and
health care providers. She has a Bachelor’s Degree and a Master’s
Degree in Asian Studies and underwent an intensive two-year Japanese training
program in Tokyo and Kyoto. She taught World Religions and Meaning
of Existence at community colleges in Hawaii and worked at the Fairbank
Center for East Asian Studies at Harvard University.