The Year I Followed My Father to the Other Side of Format: Paperback

Told in diary format, 14-year-old Franny journals about the year when she moves to Japan to be with her father and all the adventures she has learning a new culture, fitting in at a new school, and navigating feelings for more than one boy.

In this follow-up to The Year My Life Turned Upside Down, we follow 15-year-old Franny as she now has to have her life uprooted for the second time in a year, and this time she is moving to Japan to follow her father as he continues his research there. Far away from anything she knows, Franny deals with cultural differences as best as she can, with varying levels of success. She is able to find some respite when she befriends the supercute son of her dad's boss, who also attends her new school. Told in diary format with illustrations on every page, readers will connect with Franny's honest and humorous travails which include everything from the everyday worries of making friends at a new school to the heightened feelings of missing her best friend ex-boyfriend back home, while also realizing she may have feelings for another boy. Never mind the secret her father has been keeping from her for who knows how long! A diverse cast of characters and a true emotional rollercoaser of a story will make this a hit with readers.

Author Stéphanie Lapointe is a jack-of-all-trades who loves to do everything - even the dishes because it relaxes her. When she sings, records, plays the piano, or plays characters in TV series or movies, she feels good. Even if she does not particularly like to get on a plane (especially not the little ones with doors through which the air from outside infiltrates), Stéphanie does it occasionally to go and shoot different documentary projects. It is thanks to one of her friends that Stéphanie embarked on the adventure of writing. She has won the Governor General’s Award for her book Grandfather and the Moon, as well as for the Fanny Cloutier series.

She is well-known in Canada as she is a singer, song writer, actress and humanitarian activist. She is known for winning the second season of the reality TV show Star Académie, winning the title of “next solo singing sensation”.

Today, Stéphanie lives in Montreal in a white and pink house she built with someone she loves.

Translator Ann Marie Boulanger was born in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, to an anglophone mother and a francophone father. After earning a college diploma in liberal arts, she heard about an acquaintance who was studying translation… and that’s when the lightbulb went off!

After graduating with a bachelor’s degree in translation from Montreal’s Concordia University, she was hired by start-up translation firm Traduction Proteus Inc., which she now owns. When she’s not translating novels and children’s books, Ann Marie is an accomplished medical translator.

A life-long learner, Ann Marie earned an MA in translation studies from Concordia in 2018. She is a mentor, a trainer, and a part-time lecturer in translation studies at McGill University. Her first literary translation, The Woman in Valencia, by Annie Perreault, was named a World Literature Today Notable Translation of 2021. She lives in Montreal with her son.