Gathering of Pearls - Softcover

Born in Pyongyang, North Korea, Sook Nyul Choi spent two and a half years as a refugee in Pusan during the Korean War. She later immigrated to the United States to pursue her college education at Manhattanville College. She taught school in New York City for twenty years while she and her husband raised two daughters. Echoes of the White Giraffe is a sequel to Sook Nyul Choi’s first novel, Year of Impossible Goodbyes, which won the Judy Lopez Children’s Book Award.

Grade 7-12-This novel completes the autobiographical trilogy begun in Year of Impossible Goodbyes (Dell, 1993) and continued in Echoes of the White Giraffe (Houghton, 1993). Here the story begins with Sookan's arrival in White Plains, New York, in 1954 to start college, where she is the only Korean student at a small Catholic school for women. She confronts all the problems of adjustment normal to freshmen, plus the added burdens of absorbing a foreign culture and earning extra money. It is easy to fall in love with this gentle girl. She combines a delicate sweetness with a fierce determination to fulfill her dreams. She works hard to produce her own blend of cultures and values-she delights in the new, and tempers it with the traditional. She also attempts to maintain a correspondence with family members struggling to rebuild their lives in post-war Korea, but they see her as a deserter. Only her mother understands her yearnings and conflicts. The soul-searching quality of Choi's prose is at least as important to this beautiful novel as the plot line. It is not essential to have read the previous books to appreciate this one, but its full impact will be diminished for those unfamiliar with Sookan's experiences growing up in her war-torn homeland. On the other hand, those who responded to the suspense, hardship, and emotional tensions of the first two novels may be disappointed by the quiet, introspective mood of this intimately rendered narrative. However, readers who share in this emotional journey with Sookan will grow along with her in wisdom.
Margaret Cole, Oceanside Library, NY
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.