Sixth grader Jason Parker knows that he will never quite fit in at the Japanese school where he attends classes. After all, his lack of facility with the language and his whiteness mark him as distinctly different from the others attending school in this Kamakura fishing village. Even though he is a good big brother to his sister Cora and owns an orange belt in aikido, he cannot get away from the fact that he is older than his classmates and different. In the eyes of some of the class bullies, different is a very bad thing. When his teacher assigns him to a work group that consists solely of these bullies, Jason is in for a world of hurt. Not only do they belittle him, but they force him to do extra work and become physically abusive as well. As things go from bad to worse and one of his friends betrays him, Jason struggles with trying to feel safe enough to learn in class and protect himself from all the bullying. In this moving novel in verse, readers will empathize with his plight and his conflicted identity--a confident example of someone who does the right things in one place and an anxious, downtrodden victim in school. Teachers will want to read this book so that they can consider their own responses to bullying as well as being more vigilant to its possibilities and existence in their own classrooms. Jason's determination to handle things on his own for awhile is admirable to some extent, but ultimately, the intervention of adults is necessary. I especially appreciated his reliance on aikido for centering and how he offers suggestions for dealing with bullying through respect for others and not tolerating singling someone out as different. It's interesting that the book is set in Japan with its unique cultural flavors, which are captured vividly here, but it's noteworthy that bullying exists in that country. So often it's considered to be a problem primarily in schools in the United States, which is apparently not the case. This would be a great book for sharing aloud with middle graders or as assigned reading since it opens up much discussion about how bullies operate and thrive in schools. Interestingly, the bullying Jason endures occurs right under the teacher's nose at times, but also outside of school as well.