{"id":693,"date":"2006-02-09T20:34:11","date_gmt":"2006-02-10T01:34:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/?p=693"},"modified":"2006-03-01T13:49:56","modified_gmt":"2006-03-01T18:49:56","slug":"a-single-shard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/2006\/02\/09\/a-single-shard\/","title":{"rendered":"A Single Shard"},"content":{"rendered":"

2002 Newbery Medal Winner: A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park<\/p>\n\nThe Plot<\/b>
\nCrane Man and Tree Ear are two people who live on the fringe of an ancient Korean village known for its pottery. When Tree Ear’s curiousity accidentally causes the destruction of a valuable box, he becomes first the indentured servant and then the apprentice of one of the potters, Min. He later finds himself on the road to the capital, entrusted with a valuable sample piece to show to the royal commissioner.<\/p>\n

My Thoughts<\/b>
\nMy initial impression of the book was a poor one — I hate<\/i> it when non-English names are ‘translated’ into what they mean. It’s ridiculous. Just because a name happens to have a meaning doesn’t mean it’s still not a proper noun, and in my opinion, proper nouns should not be translated.<\/p>\n

(How silly would this sound? As Pearl, The Lord’s Addition, Consecrated to God and Beloved One grow up in Civil War era Massachusetts, they experience adventures which range from the tragic to the absurd.)<\/p>\n

However, after reading for a while, I discovered that it was only these two characters whose names were written in this manner. I presume this was meant to symbolize their status as outsiders in the life of the village, and while I think it was effective, it was also jarring to me to have to read the stupid names every few lines. It would have been better to have been told what they meant in the beginning, and then be given whatever the words were in Korean.<\/p>\n

Other than that, however, the story starts off strong. We begin by outlining the extreme poverty in which Tree Ear and Crane Man live, but that moves quickly, and they’re neither of them angstful over the situation. Quickly enough the action moves to Tree Ear’s relationship with the potter Min, and his slow learning of the potter’s trade.<\/p>\n

We falter a bit, however, when we come to the climactic portion of the tale. Min, a slow worker, has not been able to complete a requested sample piece during the royal commissioner’s visit to the village, so Tree Ear volunteers to take the item to the man. Tree Ear, meanwhile, has been told that he will not be taught to actually throw pots by Min, because a potter must leave his business to his son and Min’s real son is dead. He is trying to deal with his disappointment, his worries about leaving Crane Man behind, and his nervousness about travelling with such valuable cargo.<\/p>\n

Given the title of the book, I was just waiting for something to happen to the vases, and lo and behold, they were smashed. Tree Ear collects the biggest pieces and takes them with him to the capital, where the shards are enough to convince the royal commissioner that he should grant Min the contract. Tree Ear returns to the village to find Crane Man has died, but never fear, because Min and his wife have decided to adopt Tree Ear and make him their son.\n<\/pracut>\n

In Short<\/b>
\nOverall, I enjoyed this book quite a bit, though the first half was better than the second. Much like the Little House books, it spends a lot of time talking about the process of creating something in a time with different technology, and that always holds my attention. The resolution, however, was trite, and there’s an automatic 1.5 point deduction for using an unnecessary death to advance the plot. 7.5\/10 reduced to 6\/10.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

2002 Newbery Medal Winner: A Single Shard, by Linda Sue Park The Plot Crane Man and Tree Ear are two people who live on the fringe of an ancient Korean village known for its pottery. When Tree Ear’s curiousity accidentally causes the destruction of a valuable box, he becomes first the indentured servant and then […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[2,25],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=693"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/693\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=693"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=693"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/flaminggeeks.com\/k\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=693"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}