When My Name Was Keoko

Linda Sue Park

Mar 2002 · Sold by HarperCollins

About this ebook

"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." (Kirkus starred review)

Sun-hee and her older brother, Tae-yul, live in Korea with their parents. Because Korea is under Japanese occupation, the children study Japanese and speak it at school. Their own language, their flag, the folktales Uncle tells them—even their names—are all part of the Korean culture that is now forbidden.

When World War II comes to Korea, Sun-hee is surprised that the Japanese expect their Korean subjects to fight on their side. But the greatest shock of all comes when Tae-yul enlists in the Japanese army in an attempt to protect Uncle, who is suspected of aiding the Korean resistance. Sun-hee stays behind, entrusted with the life-and-death secrets of a family at war.

This moving historical novel is from Newbery Medalist Linda Sue Park, whose beloved middle grade books include A Single Shard and A Long Walk to Water.

Ratings and reviews

I am writing this review with my own unique perspective as a child who actually lived the similar period this book is written about. This book made me bring up the fuzzy memories back into fresh insight. For that I am grateful. My name was 伊澤宗義（izawa muneyoshi）in Hirakana ‘いざわむねよし’ My Korean name in Chinese character are 尹宰重 in Hangul ‘윤재중’(yoon jae joong) I would like to fill the empty cupboard ( Bruce Cumings, Korean’s place in the Sun) with my own experience. Even though I was a little kid ( born in year 1937). I still have vivid memory of time near 1945. However I did not hear about Berlin Olympic of 1936 until 1945 after Japanese surrendered. The town I was born ,’Shenyang’ was a big city much larger than Seoul and they had three different living sections for Japanese, Korean, and Chinese. Even though I spoke Japanese well as a child we were segregated from Japanese for sure. I had some Japanese friends at my nursery school but we all went back home to our own sections. Later in my life I realized that I was one of few Koreans ever allowed to attend Japanese school but not live in their section. It was the case all the way to 1945 until I had transferred to second grade of Korean School in Korea. I could not think any Japanese working to pacify Korean having to live with Korean safely at that time. It would be the same today as any families from US would have lived deep in Iraq without the shelter of green zone. Tomo would not have lived in Sunhee’s neighborhood safely. When I moved from Japanese school to Korean school in 1945 boys and girls at Korean school had their separate classes. No co-ed classes like Sun-hee’s classes in Korean elementary school. Any kid who comes from Korean town who attends Japanese school faced out of green zone life. My brothers and sisters all attended Japanese school and had lived through the hostilities of Japanese students at school and rejection by Korean students at home town. By the way could you believe the Christian missionary sending a member with family to some place in Iraq far away from Green zone? I do not think our parents would have thought our hardship. For them our going to the better equipped school physically was far better choice for us than poor Korean school. I heard later about big financial contribution our parents made to this Japanese school in order for our family to be accepted by Japanese authorities. We were pseudo Japanese at least to Japanese authorities in Manchuria (current Chinese government won’t use the term Manchu). I was too young to learn Kanji（漢字）(한자 Hanja）but Korean school taught Hanja from fourth grade on and later abandoned the teaching of Chinese characters all together for being too difficult. About two thousand character we learned was not enough because of any advance of new knowledge or things of new invention must be represented with new Chinese character combinations. It made far worse for academic communities of different countries because they did not consult other country to have uniform new character combination for new term. For example, the musical instrument names of Symphony orchestra created by each country musicians to their own Chinese character combinations. As far as I know of Chinese characters for telephone 電話 is the same for China, Japan, and Korea. When it comes to science forget it. I may have been exposed to about 4,000 Chinese characters but I can only able to recall and write about 2,000 or even less but with traditional form. The main land Chinese people adopt the simplified form such that I could not even read menu at the restaurant in Shenyang when I visit summer of 2005. Sigh. Near the end of war Japanese took most of things for life and rationed the every daily need by issuing the ration coupon for three different levels. The Japanese coupon were the most generous and the Korean a little less and the Chinese the least. Our family was given red coupons as Japanese. Remember that we were pseudo Japanese? However

It's so Good~~ I need 2 buy this so I could read it wit out having a teacher yelling at me during Class because I have me phone out ;-) I'm glad I found this because I just love Asians like all kinds but Korean,Chinese and Japanese is my fav type of Asian so I'm really glad I found this book 󾓮󾓭󾓥 😍😍😘❤🙆 Saranghaeyo!!!!

The story of a young girl and her older brother who are forced to live under Japanese control in Korea during WWII. The family tries to retain it's Korean culture even under the strong presence of the Japanese.

About the author

Linda Sue Park, Newbery Medal winner for A Single Shard and #1 New York Times bestseller for A Long Walk to Water, is the renowned author of many books for young readers, including picture books, poetry, and historical and contemporary fiction. Born in Illinois, Ms. Park has also lived in California, England, and Ireland. She now lives in Western New York. Learn more at lindasuepark.com.