The Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi

Its 1945 and ten year old Sookan abd her family are at the hands of Japanese military who are occupying Korea. Her father is part of the resistance movement, her brother is at a labor camp, and her mother is forced to work/ supervise a sock factory. Sookan must attend a Japanese school where she cannot speak Korean instead she is forced to speak Japanese. Teh book describes what it was like to leave Korea for South Korea, it was a hard journey and on the way Sookan's fmaily was seperated. Eventually they are reunited.
It was sad to read a bout the effec that the war had on her fmaily. In our class this book is paried up with, So Far From the Bamboo Grove, which is a story about a Japanese girl livign in Korea and her terrifying escape from Korea to Japan. By reading these two texts one after teh other teh stduents can see that it doesn't matter what side you are on war effects everyone. In this case it tore up a family and it did as well in So Far From the Bamboo Grove. This would be a good text set to read when studying a war in social studies. These books provide good prespective on how war effects people and helps to make it real, not some glamrouized, long ago event.