Linda Sue Park,
When My Name Was Keoko
Clarion, 2001.

Like Linda Sue Park's previous novels - including last year's Newbery Medal-winning A Single Shard - When My Name Was Keoko is a work of historical fiction set in Korea. Once again, Park recreates a specific time and place so vividly that it seems as if the reader is actually there. At the same time, this story of occupation during World War II resembles other stories of war, set in different times and places. There are collaborators and freedom fighters, those who overtly speak out and act against their oppressors, and those who work clandestinely, participating in an underground resistance. Whatever people's roles, their everyday lives are fundamentally altered by the occupation.

This is certainly the case in the Kim household. Kim Sun-hee, her mother and father, and her brother, Kim Tai-yul have lived their lives under Japanese occupation. They are not allowed to speak Korean in public; indeed, Sun-hee and Tae-yul cannot read or write in Korean - only in Japanese. They cannot fly the Korean flag. They have to uproot and burn all of their Rose of Sharon trees, the national tree of Korea, while the Japanese replace them with cherry trees. Perhaps the worst indignity of all is that they must give up their Korean names; thus Sun-hee becomes Kaneyama Keoko and Tae-Yul becomes Kaneyama Nobuo.

The plot follows the action of the war, illuminating what it was like to live as the son and daughter of a Korean scholar during this time, revealing the small, quiet triumphs and the abiding fear of an oppressed people. Set within the larger historical context of the war, the struggles of Sun-hee and Tae-yul are revealed in alternating first-person points of view. These two perspectives, of older brother and younger sister, allow readers to learn more about the culture of occupied Korea than they would through one perspective alone, since the lives that boys and girls led at that time were quite different. The dual points of view also enable Park to effectively portray the tight bond between a brother and a sister, and between each of them and their parents.

While story and characters are paramount, historical details heighten the novel's realism. Woven seamlessly into conversations, between characters or into the private thoughts of Sun-hee or Tae-yul, these details shape but do not intrude on the story. What is happening in Korea is mirrored in the family's life. As their country is torn apart by the war, so is the Kim family. As the Korean people respond to occupation in varied ways, so do the Kims. And the healing that begins for the country when the Japanese flee is also mirrored in this family. The final scene, in which the Kims replant the Rose of Sharon tree that has been hidden in the garden shed for years - and also bring out the long-hidden Korean alphabet - shines with hope only slightly dimmed by the communist threat in the north. This is a beautifully crafted story that engages and delights as it informs.

Lee Galda
Fall 2002