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Title: Year of Impossible Goodbyes
Author: Sook Nyul Choi
Number of Pages: 169 pages
Book Number/Goal: 54/75 for 2009
My Rating: 4/5
Ten-year-old Sookan lives with her mother, grandfather, aunt, cousin, and little brother in Japanese-occupied Pyongyang. Her father has escaped to Manchuria and her older brothers are in Japanese labor camps. As the war drags on and the Japanese become even more cruel, Sookan and her family hold out hope that the Americans will come and free them. But when the war is over, it's not the Americans who come, but the Russians, and now their only hope for freedom is to make the dangerous journey south.
I'm ashamed to say this really ended up being a history lesson for me. I knew that Japan had occupied Korea before WWII and...that's about it, really. I hadn't even really thought about how Korea came to be divided into North and South. :-/ So I ended up reading a lot about Korea on wikipedia while reading this. ^_^;;
It's a good story, though, and based on the author's own experiences. The writing isn't great, but it's better than a lot of YA stuff.
Mooch from BookMooch.
Author: Sook Nyul Choi
Number of Pages: 169 pages
Book Number/Goal: 54/75 for 2009
My Rating: 4/5
Ten-year-old Sookan lives with her mother, grandfather, aunt, cousin, and little brother in Japanese-occupied Pyongyang. Her father has escaped to Manchuria and her older brothers are in Japanese labor camps. As the war drags on and the Japanese become even more cruel, Sookan and her family hold out hope that the Americans will come and free them. But when the war is over, it's not the Americans who come, but the Russians, and now their only hope for freedom is to make the dangerous journey south.
I'm ashamed to say this really ended up being a history lesson for me. I knew that Japan had occupied Korea before WWII and...that's about it, really. I hadn't even really thought about how Korea came to be divided into North and South. :-/ So I ended up reading a lot about Korea on wikipedia while reading this. ^_^;;
It's a good story, though, and based on the author's own experiences. The writing isn't great, but it's better than a lot of YA stuff.
Mooch from BookMooch.
