A Single Shard

by Linda Sue Park Published by Yearling 2001 148 Pages Genre: Historical Fiction Summary: Tree-ear lives with Crane Man under a bridge in twelfth-century Korea. As the book begins we find Tree-ear watching a man with a bag of rice on his back. Tree-ear decides to let the man know his pack is leaking a large amount of rice onto the ground, but not until it leaks a little more. But for his honesty he is rewarded with the rice that was dropped on the ground. Tree-ear finds himself very interested in pottery and he goes to a potters and watches his work from the bushes. As he does so one day, the man walks away so Tree-ear sneaks up and while admiring his work, brakes and intrecite box that was made by the potter, Min. The potter catches him and tells him he must work for him for 9 days because it took him 3 days to make the box, and he says Tree-ears time is not as valuble as his own so he must work even longer for him. He does a lot of manual labor and works hard. He secretly wishes that he will be taught how to make the beautiful pottery. Min tells him no because he will only teach his son the craft, but Min's son passed away. So eventually Tree-ear begins to work for Min for food and he really works hard, as they have been presented with the challenge to make their best pottery to show to the king's court. Tree-ear spys on some of the other potters to see what they are doing. Min tries to do some intricate work but they fail. So Min works hard until it is time to take his peaces to the King's Court. Tree-ear is elected to do this. On his trip robbers steal his money and brake every last of the pots. Tree-ear is able to find one shard that he is able to show to the King's Court, which is very impressive. When he returns home, he finds his good friend has died. The bridge they were living under colapsed and he died. Min then is able to adopt Tree-ear and he teaches his son how to make the beautiful pottery. My Reaction: I read this is elementary school, and I love it just as much now as I did then. It is unlike the other books out there. It really has a solid story line and it's interesting. I really like historical ficiton. Potential Problems: We have some very distinct classes that people are living in at the time. Also robbery. Recommendations: This is a wonderful book, I think boys may really enjoy this book as Tree-ear is quite the example of following your dreams.