Meg Goes to America

by Katy Hammel

Overview

Meg has to learn how to navigate the Japanese culture as well as her own family, which seems easy enough, until the eve of WWII. Americans are no longer safe in Japan. Will they make it out? And if they do, will Japan let her father leave, too?

Meg must face new challenges in Japan as she and her family are no longer welcome in the only place she's known as home. She finds freedom and a little magic on the long ship voyage to America and faces the culture shock of life in the U.S. while dealing with her father's absence.
 

Gold Winner of the Douglas Preston Award for Published Fiction

"Meg Goes to America is a thought-provoking novel that addresses the deeper conflicts of identity without compromising the wonders of childhood innocence. Meg is a Japanese-born American citizen who confronts her internal conflict between her personal beliefs and society's expectations. Her character provides a sense of comfort and optimism to those struggling with loneliness. Meg's story highlights the importance of self-worth and the desire to be heard. Katy Hammel weaves a captivating journey, depicting vivid imagery, heartwarming self-discovery, and bittersweet reality. This novel is a must-read for the youth of this generation." - Jessica Chong

Product Details

BN ID:	2940182425698
Publisher:	Plot Duckies
Publication date:	09/02/2025
Sold by:	Draft2Digital
Format:	eBook
File size:	493 KB
Age Range:	9 - 12 Years

About the Author

A chance visit to Bookworks bookstore in Albuquerque introduced Katy to National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) and she wrote her first novel in 2012. The next year she began showing her elementary school students how to write novels. Katy and her fourth and fifth graders were featured in a November, 2013 article in Albuquerque: The Magazine (Vol. 10, No. 7 pp. 38-39). Over the past five years, 28 students have completed and published novels in her classroom. Katy prides herself in nurturing student creativity, courage, and identity as New Mexicans and Americans. Themes of belonging, intelligence, and moral courage appear throughout her fiction writing.

Katy Hammel was born in Japan, the daughter and grand-daughter of American Protestant missionaries. As a child, she traveled the world with her family, but she always knew she was an American girl and she longed to live in the USA. Having grown up in a country as densely populated as Japan, Katy was particularly drawn to the wide-open spaces of the American west.

After finishing her undergraduate degree at Yale University, working in Brooklyn, New York and Fairfield, Connecticut, Katy headed west. She settled in Albuquerque and began a fruitful career as a civil rights lawyer. In 1998, she was named the ACLU-New Mexico's Attorney of the Year.

Katy met her husband in law school and they have two sons. As the children grew, Katy changed direction and became a teacher for children with giftedness and other learning exceptionalities. She achieved National Board Certification as a teacher in 2013 and was selected as Teacher of the Year by the New Mexico Association for the Gifted. Katy has served on the boards of state-wide organizations that host activities and competitions for New Mexico's young people, including Destination Imagination and English Expo. She was recently inducted into the Delta Kappa Gamma honorary society of women teachers.

Meg Goes to America is her first published novel. To prepare to write this novel, Katy traveled to the site of the Manzanar internment camp in California, where her grandfather did indeed work as a chaplain. She also benefited from interviews with family members and research at the Presbyterian Historical Society in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Although many of the incidents depicted in the novel describe or were inspired by historical events, it is a work of fiction.