Entering

The road to the 'old bottom middle school'
A whole new world
A Christmas filled with 'bad' rap
School Politics
Trying on someone's shoes
This side and that side of the pool
How to Give a School Uniform to a Friend
Nationalism that passed by coolly
A minefield of diverse world
In my mother's country
The future is in your hands
Again, somewhere
The relationship between bullying and attendance
I'm struggling with my identity right now
The unbearable gap between existences
I have yellow, white and a little green

#1 on Amazon Japan, bestseller with 300,000 copies sold
Winner of the 2019 Bookstore Awards, the best book chosen by experts and readers!

A model student of Asian descent who entered a white working-class British secondary school.
Children grow up in a world rife with discrimination and violence.

A Japanese author who has lived in the UK for over 20 years has written about the vivid realities she experienced while raising a child at the bottom of British society, which is suffering from class disparity and multiculturalism.
This is the hotly anticipated bestseller, "I Am Yellow, White, and a Little Blue," which swept various book awards, including the Bookstore Grand Prize, last year and was selected as the best book by readers, experts, bookstores, and librarians.
Brady Mikako, whose previous work, "Class Struggle: The Children of the World," told the story of free daycare in Britain during the austerity era, now explores the sensitive issues of diversity and discrimination by observing the complex and nuanced experiences of her son, who has just started middle school, with friends from different backgrounds.


The story begins when the author's son, who was attending a prestigious Catholic elementary school, suddenly announces that he will be enrolling in a local middle school.
The local middle school, which was called 'the lowest ranked public school in the lowest neighborhood', is a chaotic world rife with discrimination and violence.
The author worries that small Asian children might experience racism or violence in a predominantly white school.
But contrary to the parents' worries, the child bravely moves forward.
The “Yellow White” child grows up in a place where complex conflicts such as racial discrimination, the gap between the rich and the poor, anti-immigrant sentiment, and sexual minority issues are intertwined, clashing with, fighting with, and worrying about friends of different races, nationalities, and classes.


Discrimination has become more complex, violence has become more diverse, and class distinctions have become more rigid.
“This may be the near future of Korean society.”

A neighborhood in a British provincial city where public housing is concentrated.
On the surface, it looks like just a 'poor neighborhood', but in reality, it is a mix of people living in public housing, people who bought public housing, and people who remodeled their purchased public housing to fit the latest trends.
The middle school that the neighborhood's children attend is a mix of free lunch recipients, middle class, immigrants, indigenous people, whites, and people of color.
The author worried that the child would be discriminated against by white people or subjected to violence because of his small size, but the nature of discrimination and violence is much more complex.
Immigrants and people of color were ostracized by other immigrants, children who scolded their friends for stealing food from restaurants were punished with violence, and a child who made hateful remarks was bullied by a group for being "uncool."
They show prejudice disguised as kindness and concern for 'people different from themselves', and justify violence on the grounds of political correctness and freedom of taste.

The divisions and conflicts in society are already so deep-rooted that it is difficult to dismiss them as children's reckless behavior.
Amidst the fiercely divided public opinion surrounding Brexit, the dual attitudes toward immigrants, and the cold gaze of the middle class towards the lower classes, the children's battleground was already anticipated.
The sight of middle school swimming competitions, where even the poolsides of private and public schools are separated, vividly shows the class-based society of the 21st century.


Because schools are a mirror reflecting society, there are bound to always be gaps among students.
But in places where the gap was allowed to widen, there was no sense of warmth.
It was dark and stiff, and it didn't seem like anything new or fun would happen.
I think that's evidence that it's already starting to decline._Page 266

The author's gaze, which calmly observes what is happening around him and his son, sharply penetrates the dark side of British society, where the pride of 'civil society' is deeply rooted.
Beyond the schools rife with disparities, discrimination, and violence, what was revealed was a 'collapsed welfare state' and a 'multicultural society driven into a dead end' due to the conservative government's austerity policies.
The author sternly warns of the dangers of a society that doesn't know, or doesn't try to know, what's happening in public housing, poolside, or the back of the classroom.

“It’s natural for everyone to be different.”
Children living in the 'Age of Empathy'

Despite adults' concerns, children overcome the challenges of discrimination and diversity one by one in their own ways.
We reach out to friends who make hateful remarks, try to help poor friends without hurting their pride, and encourage friends who are struggling with their sexual identity by saying, “You just have to take your time and figure it out.”
Sometimes, they encounter problems that seem unsolvable, but the attitude of children who “boldly say, ‘Let’s leave it at this for now,’ and face it head-on, constantly encountering new things” gives great courage to adults of the same age who are burdened with the same concerns.

It may be a cliché, but the future lies in the hands of those children.
Some people say the world is regressing or moving in a terrible direction, but aren't they underestimating children?
Page 203

Racism still exists, bullying persists, and children are forced to wear tattered uniforms to school, but life goes on.
Even if they think differently from me, even if I don't understand them, and even if they sometimes hate me, I accept them and coexist with them.
The author points out that in a world where adults divide people into factions and confront each other over various issues, and cannot even tolerate the existence of opposing factions, children live by calmly accepting the reality that "there are people who are different from me."


The author emphasizes 'empathy' as the most important ability we must have to survive in a multicultural society.
The ability to understand the emotions and experiences of others is perhaps the most necessary virtue in our society, where divisions and conflicts are becoming increasingly severe, such as the gap between the rich and the poor, generational conflict, multiculturalism, and political strife.
'Empathy' is a profound concept that even adults find difficult to answer, but the author's son explains it very simply.
“It’s like putting yourself in someone else’s shoes.”
As the Asahi Shimbun commented, “A most promising writer who knows how to magically blend humor and subtlety while simultaneously attacking rotten politics with sharp and punk writing,” Brady Mikako’s writing, which humorously describes her son’s stormy school life while also exposing the dark side of society with a sharp perspective, resonates deeply with us living in this era.