There's also an article by reporter Hiroko Tashiro, former head of the parent-teacher association at a suburban Tokyo elementary school, on the anxieties that her daughter--and millions of Japanese schoolchildren--face in the nation's rigid education system.

CNN: ASIANOW - TIME Asia

My parents were outgoing, hospitable people, their friends culled from among my father's associates at the office and from the women who along with my mother had helped to organize the Parent-Teacher Association at newly built Chancellor Avenue School, where my brother and I were pupils.

NPR: Roth Rewrites History with a 'Plot Against America'