Park, Linda Sue. 2002. WHEN MY NAME WAS KEOKO. Wilmington, MA: Houghton Mifflin. ISBN 0618133356.

Told in the alternating voices of ten-year-old Sun-hee and her older brother Tae-yul, this novel is the story of one proud Korean family during WWII and the occupation of Korea by the Japanese. All Sun-hee’s life the Japanese have been in charge – taking ownership of the rice fields, running businesses and schools, and issuing imperial decrees to suppress Korean language, culture, and customs. The Korean flag is banned, teaching the Korean Hangul alphabet is illegal, Rose of Sharon trees (a Korean national symbol) are destroyed, and all Koreans must take new Japanese names. Outwardly at least the family complies and Sun-yee chooses the new name of Keoko while her brother becomes Nobuo.

As the war goes on, conditions for the family worsen as their possessions are taken away one by one to support the Japanese war effort, food and clothing become scarce, and many of their fellow townspeople are conscripted to work in Japanese factories or serve in the Japanese army. Keoko’s world is shaken when her uncle is forced to flee after his work printing a resistance newspaper is discovered. The remaining family is stunned when Nobuo, who has always been fascinated with airplanes, volunteers to become a kamikaze pilot in order provide for the family. Can the family survive another loss? When Japan surrenders after the American atomic bombs are dropped, Korea is free but the war’s end may have come too late to save Tae-yul.

This novel accurately presents historic details of the Korean people’s experience as they struggle with wartime hardships under Japanese rule. Details of Korean culture are revealed naturally as the story unfolds, quietly pulling the reader into Keoko and Tae-yul’s lives. The book’s characters are completely believable, as they react to events in the story with outspoken hostility, quiet resignation, sadness, or confused uncertainty. Readers will identify with Keoko and Taeyul as they try to understand where they fit in a vanishing culture and what actions are truly right or wrong. In one instance, Keoko questions her own motives when she is taunted as chin-il-pa or “lover of Japanese” after winning a prize for her Japanese kanji writing skills at school. “I was good at Japanese. They thought that made me chin-il-pa. I wasn’t a traitor, was I? Could you be a traitor without knowing it?”

The book’s themes celebrate the strength of family and the importance of being true to oneself despite adversity and oppression. “Like the Rose of Sharon tree, symbol of Korea, which the family pots and hides in their shed until their country is free, Sun-hee and Tae-yul endure and grow.” (SLJ, 2002)

The back matter of the book features an author’s note detailing Ms. Park’s research for the book, including stories from her own parents, together with a brief history of Korea up to the present. Also included is a bibliography with selected titles of interest to readers twelve and up. Ms. Park notes that this was a difficult story for her to tell, and for her parents to revisit, but as she explained in an interview, "Your past is a huge part of what makes you you, and exploring the past can help you better understand the present and future." (Thompson Gale, 2006).

Reviews and Awards

Publishers Weekly starred review: “Through the use of the shifting narrators, Park subtly points up the differences between male and female roles in Korean society and telling details provide a clear picture of the siblings and their world.”

School Library Journal starred review: “This beautifully crafted and moving novel…expands readers' understanding of this period.”

Kirkus Reviews starred review: “This powerful and riveting tale of one close-knit, proud Korean family movingly addresses life-and-death issues of courage and collaboration, injustice, and death-defying determination in the face of totalitarian oppression.”

2002 Publishers Weekly Best Books of the Year

2002 School Library Journal, Best Books of the Year

2002 New York Public Library, 100 Titles for Reading and Sharing

2003 ALA Notable Book for Children

2003 Notable Children's Trade Book in the Field of Social Studies

2004 Skipping Stones (an international multicultural magazine) Honor Award

2003 Jane Addams Peace Association Book Award Honor Book

2003 ALA Best Book for Young Adults

2003 Bank Street Best Children's Books of the Year

2003 NYPL Books for the Teen Age List

2003 Cooperative Children’s Book Center Choices

Numerous state book nominee lists and awards

Connections

Books and websites can extend the story and help children learn more about Korean history and culture:

Books

A Kid’s Guide to Asian-American History by Valerie Petrillo (Chicago Review Press, 2007)

Land of Morning Calm: Korean Culture Then and Now by John Stickler and Soma Han (Shens Books, 20030

The Legend of Hong Kil Dong: Robin Hood of Korea (graphic novel) by Anne Sibley O’Brien (Charlesbridge, 2006)

My Name is Yoon (picture book) by Helen Recorvits (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2003)

Websites

Video interview with Linda Sue Park:

AdLit.org, 2008. http://www.adlit.org/authors/Park/4641

Author’s website: http://www.lspark.com or www.lindasuepark.com

Author biography:

Encyclopedia of World Biography. 2006. “Park, Linda Sue.” Thompson Gale. http://www.notablebiographies.com/news/Ow-Sh/Park-Linda-Sue.html#ixzz0WbYrWF5E (accessed November 1, 2009)

Klages, Ellen. 2007. THE GREEN GLASS SEA. Narrated by: Julie Dretzin. Prince Frederick, MD: Recorded Books. ISBN 1428146393.

This review is of the unabridged audiobook production, playing time 7 hours and 30 minutes, comprising seven compact discs, packaged in a clamshell case from Recorded Books. The sole reader is Julie Dretzin, a female actress with experience on Broadway shows and in television, who has served as narrator for nearly thirty audiobook titles. The sound quality of the recording was excellent, without static or distracting background noise; no sound effects or musical soundtrack accompanied the reader. Ms. Dretzin employed variations in her voice to represent the speaking voices of the book’s different characters. She was quite effective, even on the male characters. She portrayed the persona of the main character, a bright eccentric preteen girl, in a very believable manner.

This first novel by Klages opens as a young girl, who prefers building inventions to playing with dolls, travels to meet her father at an undisclosed destination, known only as “The Hill”, where he is doing “war stuff.” We gradually learn that 11-year-old Dewey Kerrigan has been raised mostly by others while her father pursued his career and for the first time in years she will be living with him. When Dewey arrives in Santa Fe, Army personnel meet her and it becomes clear she is headed for a highly secret place that few know about and that doesn’t exist on any map.

The story follows Dewey through the spring and summer of 1945, as her predilection for gathering junkyard castoffs for her inventions earns her the nickname “Screwy Dewey” among the Hill’s scientists’ children, and as her relationship with her father deepens. Dewey’s feeling of having a real home is snatched away when, on a trip to Washington, D.C., Dr. Kerrigan is killed by a drunk driver, and Dewey’s temporary living arrangement with the Gordon family must become long term. Now her initially antagonistic relationship with Suze Gordon, another outcast, changes in nature as they confront the possibility of becoming sisters and all the while, the development of “the Gadget” comes inevitably closer to completion. Only after the successful test of the “Fat Boy” bomb at the White Sands Proving Ground in the desolate Tularosa Basin south of Socorro, do the Los Alamos scientists begin to understand and consider the implications of what they have created.

Dr. Gordon smiled. “This is Trinity,” he said. “I thought you’d want to see it. Let’s walk.” They started across the dirt. There were no plants, none at all, not even grass or yucca. Just reddish beige, sandy dirt. Every few yards there was a charred greasewood bush. Each bush was twisted at the same odd angle, like a little black skeleton that had been pushed aside by a big wind. They kept walking. The skeletons disappeared, and then there was nothing at all. It was the emptiest place Dewey had ever seen. After about five minutes, Dewey looked down and saw burned spots that looked like little animals, like a bird or a desert mouse had been stenciled black against the hard, flat ground. She looked over at Mrs. Gordon. Mrs. Gordon had stopped walking. She stood a few yards back from the others, her lips pressed tight together, staring down at one of the black animal shapes. “Christ,” she said. “What have we done?” [Ellen Klages, The Green Glass Sea]

Klages exhibits a talent for depicting realistic relationships, for example when Suze draws a chalk line down the center of the room she is forced to share with Dewey. Klages also includes details from the era, such as popular music and store products, which the give the story authenticity. The addition of authentic details such as physicist J. Robert “Oppie” Oppenheimer, the euphemism “twisting the dragon’s tail”, and the death of one scientist due to radiation exposure also contribute to the book’s realism.

This novel would probably appeal to middle or high-school-age teens living in New Mexico, dealing as the story does with local history, and also to teens interested in the WWII time period or in the development of the atomic bomb. The audio format is likely to appeal to reluctant readers more than the print edition, it is also available in a digital ebook version.

The listening experience of the audiobook format brought an extra dimension to the story, allowing the audience to hear Dewey’s voice and bringing her personality to life for the listener, a process that can take longer to occur when reading a printed book. I found the novel interesting, as the story of the Manhattan Project was told in a different way, from the point of view of a young person on the inside of the top secret base. This book by Ellen Klages reminded me of another juvenile novel with the same setting, The Secret Project Notebook by Carolyn Reeder (2005, Los Alamos Historical Society).

I was critical of this audiobook on two points. One was that the reader’s ‘S’s occasionally “whistled,” which I found irritating at times. Also, the front cover art of the audiobook was quite different from the cover art of the hardback print edition shown above. It unfortunately contained erroneous elements, depicting the main character on a bicycle, overlooking the Trinity site, with a saguaro cactus in the foreground. I found this misleading, as in the story the character did not possess a bike, and saguaro cacti do not grow in New Mexico.

Reviews and Awards

Horn Book Magazine starred review: “intense but accessible page-turner; history and story are drawn together with confidence.”

Publishers Weekly starred review: “Klages makes an impressive debut with an ambitious, meticulously researched novel set during WWII. Writing from the points of view of two displaced children, she successfully recreates life at Los Alamos Camp, where scientists and mathematicians converge with their families to construct and test the first nuclear bomb. The author provides much insight into the controversies surrounding the making of the bomb and brings to life the tensions of war experienced by adults and children alike."

Booklist review: “the characters are exceptionally well drawn, and the compelling, unusual setting makes a great tie-in for history classes.”

School Library Journal review: “Many readers will know as little about the true nature of the project as the girls do, so the gradual revelation of facts is especially effective, while those who already know about Los Alamos's historical significance will experience the story in a different, but equally powerful, way.”

Scott O’Dell Award for Historical Fiction, 2007
Notable Social Studies Trade Books, 2007
Horn Book Fanfare Best Books of the Year, 2006

Connections

Children could mark the places mentioned in the novel on a map of New Mexico, examine pieces of Trinitite (available through Internet purchase), or perhaps create a wall collage as story characters Dewey and Suze do in their house in Los Alamos.

The story continues in this second historical novel by Ellen Klages:

White Sands, Red Menace, 2008