After all, millions of people born in mainland China have travelled to foreign lands to cope with different climates, cultures and customs. Also, there are numerous recent examples of fiction and biography describing the pain of Chinese people both in their homeland and abroad. Some would say it is almost a literary fashion.

What sets her apart, however, is her ability to weave delicately delightful stories for children of all ages against the complex emotional and psychological complexities of the Chinese diaspora. Her particular skill is to retain the tension and drama of displacement without sentimentality or hyperbole. Too many writers reach for cliche and play for sympathy. Namioka tells it like it is.

She does have personal experience to draw on. Namioka was born in Beijing in June 1929. Four years later her family moved to Nanjing where she has many memories of an idyllic time, with picnics in the Purple Mountains and boating on Xuanwu Lake. These were balanced by the horrors of aerial bombing during the Japanese invasion both there, and later in Changsha.

When she was eight years old, her family moved to the United States. Although she was mathematically able, she struggled like many before her to master a language so different from her native Chinese. In an interview with an American web site she tells how she remembers sounding out her first sentence. "It was 'Ben had a fine red sled'," she says. Delighted that she was able to decode, she quickly changed from reading the Chinese books she had brought from home to devouring volumes from the local library situated nearby.

Although she wrote her first book at age eight on scraps of paper she sewed together with thread, her writing career started in the 1970s after she graduated from Berkeley with a master's degree and stints as a mathematics instructor and translator. In 1976 she published her first books for young readers. Both The Samurai and the Long-Nosed Devils and White Serpent Castle told of the adventures of two unemployed samurai in sixteenth-century Japan. More books on similar themes followed as well as a travel book on Japan.

Namioka's connection to Japan is not as surprising as it may seem. Despite her family's experiences at the hands of the Japanese military, she knew her mother had studied medicine there and when she met Isaac as a fellow graduate student at U.C Berkeley from Japan, love conquered all.

Her marriage might explain her surname and the focus of her first forays into publishing, but how about Lensey, a name she believes is unique? She herself writes how her father was working on the committee in China charged by the government with making Chinese easier to learn. His delight at his success with a form of Romanization led him to give his new daughter a name that sounded Chinese but did not really exist. She writes, "That was how I wound up with a name that looks plausible, but which makes every Chinese say, 'Huh?' It also guarantees that nobody else in the world has (or would want) a name like mine."

She has made her name with her idiosyncratic and sensitive take on the travails of growing up with a complex set of cultural markers. Following another Japanese adventure, Valley of the Broken Cherry Trees, Namioka broke new ground in 1980 with Who's Hu. In this tale the main character, a Chinese-American by birth finds herself caught in the middle of trying to conform as well as cope with parental pressure to remain loyal to their Chinese roots.

She makes no apology for the fact that much of the material from this, and several others of her books, comes from close to home. She tells the tale of how getting a date for the senior prom was a problem for her because of the lack of Asian boys. Her sister mediated with a Chinese college boy to act as a date. Writing about Emma Hu's humiliation was a kind of catharsis for her.

More Japanese adventures, a couple of travel books and a Chinese story later saw the beginning of one of her most successful projects. Yang the Youngest and His Terrible Ear was the first in as series of four books - one each for the four offspring of a family adjusting to life in America having moved from China. The father is a professional musician and all the others are musically gifted, except the youngest boy, nine-year old Yingtao. The critical acclaim these books received is richly deserved. The first is even used as a textbook in several public schools in the States. The latest volume Yang the Eldest and His Odd Jobs won a Parents Choice Gold Medal.

The stimulus for the series was her annoyance with people who like to stereotype ethnic groups. She was only going to write one book before her agent, wisely as it turns out, persuaded her to carry on. Two years after beginning the Yang series, Namioka won a Washington State Governor's Writers Award for another cross-cultural book, April and the Dragon Lady. A Seattle teenager's attempts to get on with her life are complicated by her family responsibilities (in this case to her grandmother).

Despite significant early successes, critics generally agree that her best work is her most recent. Ties That Bind, Ties That Break explores the practical and emotional consequences of a young girl, Ailin, who refuses to have her feet bound in the early twentieth century. It is a tribute to the strength and courage of Chinese women who were forced to forge a new path for status, respect and independence in a changing, dangerous world.

The companion volume arrived last year. An Ocean Apart, A World Away is based more on the story of her mother whose fictional counterpart, Yanyan, is Ailin's best friend in the original book.

Namioka has also written books for young readers including, The Loyal Cat and The Hungriest Boy in the World that see her continue her Japanese theme.

Her most recent project is further extension of her main theme. Half and Half is due to be published in June this year. The story describes the tensions in the life of Fiona to try to satisfy the expectations of both her mother's Scottish background and her father's Chinese roots. Fiona looks more like her father, yet longs to dance with her Scottish grandfather's folk-dancing troupe. As with Namioka herself, you can expect the unexpected with Fiona.

Namioka claims to get inspiration for her work while taking long walks. Perhaps someone should take her on the Maclehose Trail while she is in the territory to see what sweeping views of the South China Sea can inspire.

Paul McGuire is a freelance author, writer and reviewer. He is also Deputy Principal of Sha Tin Junior School.