When My Name Was Keoko: A Novel of Korea in World War II
CCBC Review:
Growing up in occupied Korea during World War Two, Kim Sun-hee is ten years old when she learns that she and her family, like all Koreans, must take new Japanese names. Overnight she becomes Kaneyama Keoko and her 13-year-old brother, Tae-yul, becomes Nobuo. This is just the latest in a long string of new laws aimed at suppressing Korean culture. Already Sun-hee has excelled in Japanese at school--where speaking, writing, and reading Korean is forbidden--to such an extent that she is sometimes called chin-il-pa (lover of Japan). Spanning the years between 1940 and 1945, the story unfolds in the alternating points of view of Sun-hee and Tae-yul, who respond quite differently to the same events. Whereas Tae-yul wants to follow in the footsteps of their politically subversive uncle who works for the underground, Sun-hee tries to follow the example set by her scholarly father, quietly subversive in his own right as he struggles to maintain a Korean identity for his family. ©2002 Cooperative Children's Book Center
CCBC Age Recommendation: Age 11 and older
Age Range:
Grades 6-8 (Ages 11-13)
Grades 9-12 (Age 14 and older)
Format:
Novel
Subjects:
20th Century
Activism and Resistance
Families
Japanese and Japanese Americans
Koreans and Korean Americans
Oppression
Siblings
World War II
Diversity subject:
Asian
Publish Year: 2002
Pages: 199
ISBN: 0618133356
CCBC Location: Fiction, Park