A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

2002 Newbery Medal Winner

Tree-Ear is a young orphan boy who lives under a bridge with his companion, Crane-man, in 12th century Korea. The two friends never know where their next meal is coming from, but what is lacking in food and money is made up for in heart and friendship.

When Tree-Ear is not scrounging for scraps of food, he watches master potter Min make his beautiful Korean Celadon pottery. One day he can't resist picking up a beautiful piece of pottery and ends up damaging the work. Because he can't repay Min in money, he agrees to work for Min to repay him in hopes of learning from this master potter. But Min has other things in store, and Tree-Ear finds himself doing excruciating manual labor.

When the king sends his emissary to find potters for a lifelong commission, Tree-Ear finds himself going on a journey that forever changes his life.

A Single Shard is a beautifully written and emotional novel about friendship, hope, love, and acceptance. Here's a passage near the beginning of the novel that particularly spoke to me:

The gentle curves of the vase, its mysterious green color. The sharp angle of the plum twigs, their blackness stark amid the airy white blossoms. The work of a human, the work of nature; clay from the earth, a branch from the sky. A kind of peace spread through Tree-Ear, body and mind, as if while he looked at the vase and its branch, nothing could ever go wrong in the world. (p. 52)

But things do go wrong in the world as we witness Tree-Ear on both his physical journey and his emotional journey in the book. Through Tree-Ear's story, the reader also learns a lot about pottery making during the 12th century and the hard work involved in creating one single piece of celadon pottery. The Author's Note at the end of the book along with an essay about celadon pottery teach us more about the time period and the art of creating this rare and beautiful pottery.

This book is would make a good clean read aloud for an entire family, and children will enjoy going back into time and learning more about pottery making. Chock full of learning opportunities, this book would also make an excellent addition to any classroom curriculum.

Cross posted at The Well-Read Child

A Single Shard

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

I read this a couple of years ago at the urging of some of my students. It was a magnificent read, all the more so because it had been students who encouraged me to read it.

It was even better this time. That is one of the marks of an outstanding book for me, a book that bears up under the pressure of a reread.

The story is that of Tree-ear, an orphan, living in twelfth-century Korea. He lives under a bridge with a fellow outcast, Crane-man, a man who is only able to hobble about with the help of a cane. The two survive by scavenging. Then Tree-ear accidentally breaks a pot of one of his village’s greatest potters, Min, and, to compensate for his carelessness, he goes to work for Min. Tree-ear dreams of learning Min’s trade, but Min is an angry man who feels only a son should learn a father’s trade and he regards Tree-ear as no son of his. Min and his wife are childless, having lost their son earlier in life. Min’s wife gradually comes to love Tree-ear and, even more slowly, Min does, too. When a representative of the king visits the village in search of a new potter for the royal family, Min’s work is found to be worthy of a closer look. To show his work to the king, Tree-ear offers to take Min’s pottery on a long journey to the royal city. It is a trip fraught with danger. Along the way, Tree-ear is besieged by robbers and, in the process, all of Min’s work is destroyed. Tree-ear, though discouraged, does not give up. He takes an intact shard of Min’s pottery to the king and the tiny piece of Min’s work is enough to give Min a commission to the king. Tree-ear loses his friend, Crane-man, but acquires for the first time both a family and a vocation with Min and his wife.

A Single Shard

A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park, won the Newbery in 2002. It's a quiet book, filled with the mechanics of pottery-making, and I'm guessing that kids that like a lot of action in their books (like my almost 11 year old son) won't find it particularly interesting.

To tell you the truth, I wasn't really that thrilled with the book, either. Park does an exquisite job of portraying a village in Korea in the 1100's and making its inhabitants seem like regular people instead of quaint archaic primitives. Tree-ear (the ten year old protagonist) and Crane-man are interesting, but their relationship doesn't really evolve. The plot that involved potter Ming, Tree-ear's apprenticeship, and Tree-ear's journey to the capital was a little too predictable for me.

I did really like the discussion of intellectual property rights. You don't find that in kid's books too often (as far as I know, anyway, I'd be happy to hear otherwise in the comments):

Tree-ear spoke slowly. "It is a question about stealing." He paused, starting to speak, stopped again. Finally, "Is it stealing to take from another something that cannot be held in your hands?"

"Ah! Not a mere question but a riddle-question, at that. What is this thing that cannot be held?"

"A - an idea. A way of doing something."

"A better way than others now use."

"Yes. A new way, one that could lead to great honor."

Crane-man lay back down again. He was silent for so long that Tree-ear thought that he had fallen asleep. Tree-ear sighed and lay down himself, thinking, thinking....

...And therein lived the question-demon: If Tree-ear were to tell Min what he had seen, would that be stealing Kang's idea?

Crane-man's voice startled Tree-ear.

"If a man is keeping an idea to himself, and that idea is taken by stealth or trickery - I say it is stealing. But once a man has revealed his idea to others, it is no longer his alone. It belongs to the world. (p. 62, 64).

Park's descriptions of artistry are beautiful, too. I guess I just wanted more. I've decided I want the Newbery winners to really grab me, or to linger in my memory. This is a beautiful little book, but the story just didn't satisfy me the way my favorite Newbery winners have. I do think that anyone interested in either ceramics or Korea (especially its history) will enjoy this a great deal.

Here are some celadon ceramics from Linda Sue Park's homepage (note that there are story spoilers in descriptions of the pieces on this page). The pictures can't be enlarged, though, so check out the Metropolitan Museum of Art's page on Koryô celadon.

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

An orphan boy in 12th century Korea lives under the bridge with a crippled man. He is fascinated with the pottery made by the craftsman in the nearby pottery village. He is taken on as an apprentice and his life slowly changes. This was a good book, a nice pleasant read but I guess I expected something more from a Newbery winner. I enjoy pretty much anything written about ancient Asia and this did give a wonderful portrayal of Korean life at the time.

A Single Shard (2002)

This is an apparently simple story as an orphan dreams of becoming a potter one day. Tree ear grows up in a very difficult world which is carefully yet simply portrayed. The characters are life like and richly developed. Throughout Tree ear has to make choices – who knows if they are right or wrong. At the start of the book his motives are fairly self centred, he wants to become a potter. By the end he undertakes a challenge for someone else and en route – becomes lost in his work as he makes a clay monkey for his friend ‘Crane – man’.

This friend is the one who imparts the words ‘My friend, the same wind that blows one door shut often blows another open.’ These resonated with me as I remembered how often have I used this saying to children as they move on from one school to another.

In her author’s note Linda Sue Park tells us that “Every piece described in the book actually exists in a museum or private collection somewhere in the world”. To see pictures of some of the pottery, including the Thousand Cranes Vase, she tells you to go to her web site. Unfortunately I found that the picture was not in fact on her web site. Please let me know if you know differently.

Tree-ear is a fictional character, the fictional merges with fact as Park suggests that perhaps such a vase, depicting the crane as a tribute to his beloved Crane-man, might have been made by a young potter like Tree-ear. One of the points I think Park is trying to make is that Tree-ear’s art may exist over 800 years after its creation; it might be on display in a museum; it might even be the impetus for the writing of a young adult novel.

In the author’s note we find that Tree ear’s achievements have not only brought a sense of satisfaction and self-understanding to Tree-ear but that his efforts may have touched generations of people who came after him. Perhaps the same is true of our work ….

I would recommend this book at many levels and will do so to a friend of mine who loves turning!

A Single Shard

The 2002 winner, by Linda Sue Park is set in 12th century Korea in a seaside potters’ village, an atypical and charming setting.” Tree Ear”, a poor Korean orphan (a familiar character in Korean folktales, I’m told) lives under a bridge with his friend “Crane Man” surviving on rubbish and fallen grains of rice. Yet he yearns to become a potter.

The book, a coming of age story, in a sense, follows Tree Ear’s fortuitous but stormy relationship with Master Potter Min, to whom he is introduced through an accident of broken pottery, and the calmer, nurturing one he share with Crane Man. Predictably, Tree Ear becomes an apprentice to Min and faces the challenge of convincing Min of his worth.

When the Royal Emissary come to the village to bestow a royal commission, Tree Ear faces his biggest challenge. delivering samples of Min’s work to the capital for inspection. Along the way, he is beset by robbers and only a single shard remains.

Though the story follows a predictable course and Tree Ear triumphs in the end, the language and positive values reinforced by Crane Man make it an enjoyable read. While the descriptions of life in 12th century Korea are minimal, the author delights readers with detailed information about the ancient art of pottery making.

The descriptions in the book and the author’s notes about life in 12th century Korea and the prized, “celadon” pottery featured in this story make this book an excellent choice for home schoolers or after a trip to a “make your own” pottery place.