Ties that Bind, Ties that Break

• Year of publication: 1999
• Editorial House: Dell Laurel-Leaf
• Number of pages: 154

                        

                        Lensey Namioka

Lensey Namioka was born in Beijing, China, in 1929. She is the daughter of Buwei Yang Chao, a surgeon, and Yuenren Chao, a linguist who specialized in the Chinese language and dialects. 

Her family moved frequently in China. Eventually they went to Hawaii, then Cambridge, Massachusetts. Then they moved to the United States from China Namioka was nine years old.

Her first love was reading and writing adventure stories.  As a child in China, she read Chinese martial arts novels, Sherlock Holmes stories, and The Three Musketeers.

At eight years old, she wrote her very first book. Thirty years later, Namioka has succeeded is becoming an accomplished author of books for children and young adults. She writes about China, Chinese American families, Japan, young women and girls facing difficult choices. Namioka has won many awards for her works.  For instance, Ties That Bind, Ties That Break was named one of the American Library Association's 10 Best Books for Young People.

She attended Radcliffe College and the University of California at Berkeley, she ended up earning a bachelor's and a master's degree in math Lensey Namioka worked primarily as a mathematics instructor before beginning her career as a published writer in the mid-1970s.

Reference sources: 

http://www.edhelper.com/ReadingComprehension_54_3972.html

https://www.eduplace.com/kids/tnc/mtai/namioka.html