The inspirational story of a group of impoverished children who were transformed into champion swimmers. In 1937 an ordinary grammar school teacher on the island of Maui took a group of underprivileged children mostly of Japanese ancestry and, in three short years, transformed them into Olympic champions.

"When twelve-year-old Waka's parents suspect she can't understand basic Japanese they speak to her, they make the drastic decision to send her to Tokyo to live for several months with her strict grandmother. Forced to say goodbye to her friends and what would have been her summer vacation, Waka is plucked from her straight-A-student life in rural Kansas and flown across the globe, where she faces the culture shock of a lifetime. In Japan, Waka struggles...