My Japanese Sabbatical

Five years ago, thirteen-year-old Bart attended a Japanese public school with a female friend he’s now keen to avoid. He wonders why he isn’t in the advanced Japanese class in his new international school in the same city, Kyoto, and if it has to do with his headmaster, a mercurial Englishman who lost his right eye playing rugby.

As winter gives way to spring, Bart and his younger brother, Quinn, enroll in judo. Summer finds them jogging barefoot to Nanzenji Temple in preparation for the citywide judo tournament, and climbing Mount Fuji, coated in volcanic ash.

Readers will enjoy these adventures and many more in My Japanese Sabbatical, a debut memoir by Oregon author, Bart Aikens.