ぼくはイエローでホワイトで、ちょっとブルー 2

by ブレイディ みかこ

「ぼく」は13歳になった。
そして親離れの季節が――。
80万人が読んだ「一生モノの課題図書」、ついに完結。

13歳になった「ぼく」の日常は、今日も騒がしい。フリーランスで働くための「ビジネス」の授業。摂食障害やドラッグについて発表する国語のテスト。男性でも女性でもない「ノンバイナリー」の教員たち。自分の歌声で人種の垣根を超えた“ソウル・クイーン"。母ちゃんの国で出会った太陽みたいな笑顔。そして大好きなじいちゃんからの手紙。心を動かされる出来事を経験するたび、「ぼく」は大人への階段をひとつひとつ昇っていく。
これは、読んでくれたあなたの物語。
そして、この時代を生きるわたしたちの物語――

【目次】
1.うしろめたさのリサイクル学
2.A Change is Gonna Come ――変化はやってくる――
3.ノンバイナリーって何のこと?
4.授けられ、委ねられたもの
5.ここだけじゃない世界
6.再び、母ちゃんの国にて
7.グッド・ラックの季節
8.君たちは社会を信じられるか
9.「大選挙」の冬がやってきた
10.ゆくディケイド、くるディケイド
11.ネバーエンディング・ストーリー

Genres: Japanese Literature

208 pages, 単行本

First published September 16, 2021

Reviews

[Misato Noto]

一読したけれど、思い出せないのでもう一度読む。

[Emi · Rating 4 out of 5]

前作に引き続き、いろいろな気づきを与えてくれる内容だった。
息子さんの学校の授業内容がすごく実践的で興味深い。

[Leah · Rating 4 out of 5]

Where to begin with this one? I read the 1st one in 2019 and it quickly became one of my all-time favorite Japanese books.

It's a non-fiction book written by a Japanese woman living in England. Each book centers around her half-Irish / half-Japanese son and his experiences, though I feel like the 2nd book is a little more loose with the theme. The 1st book touched heavily on themes of race and social class both in England and Japan. This book also has a chapter about Japan but I feel like it was a little less poignant than the last book.

I think what draws me into these books so much is that they touch on such modern topics that I haven't seen written as much in other Japanese literature. Brady writes about topics like non-binary people, political correctness, poverty, Brexit, anti-Romani racism, ...even memes! (Her mention of how her husband first pronounced it as meh-mehs and how hard her son laughed were a hoot.) Of course some of these are really unique to British-culture, but some topics are very much relevant to Japan but seem to be brushed aside as being a "Western" thing. I really loved learning about a different culture (British), in the context of a speaker explaining it another different culture (Japanese), it's like I was learning about 2 things at once.

A couple things that I didn't like so much in this one was that I thought some of the chapters were a bit shallow on the theme. The chapter about NB didn't seem to really delve deep at all into the topic despite it being the chapter name.

And one small gripe but there was a chapter where Brady referred to a child as Chinese 中国人 and another as British 英国人 whereas in the context they seemed to be equally British (they were both students of the same school), she just used British when she meant white. I was really surprised because in other instances she's careful to use words like アジア系 Asian descent or アフリカ系 African descent when talking about non-white British people. But it's a nitpick.

Really happy to read both these books. The 1st one was the principal of the school I work at's recommendation for the students 2 years ago. I wonder if she'll recommend this one for this upcoming year.