A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

From Goodreads,

"The story of Celadon pottery. From the Newbery Project: "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...""

Goodreads - A Single Shard

Awards and Nominations:

• Newbery Medal (2002)
• Dorothy Canfield Fisher Children's Book Award Nominee (2003)
• Asian/Pacific American Award for Literature for Children and Young Adult Honor (2003)
• Rebecca Caudill Young Readers' Book Award Nominee (2006)

When I was in tenth grade I had to take a beginning art class as a part of my graduation requirements.  I was blessed to have an amazing teacher who introduced us to so many techniques and mediums.  One of them that was by far my favorite was pottery.  I loved working with clay.  I remember making an Egyptian tablet that had my name written on it.  I also remember making a bowl that had Native American symbols around it.  While they were not perfect, they were definitely one of a kind and special to me.  So naturally when I realized this book was on my list of Newbery winners I knew I needed to jump in and devour it.

This book tells the story of a young boy named Tree-ear who is an orphan.  He lives with Crane-man who took him in as a young child.  Tree-ear enjoys watching the many potters in his village, but he enjoys watching Min in particular.  One day Tree-ear gets too close and accidentally breaks a piece of his work.  Min has him repay his debts, which later led to Tree-ear gaining an apprenticeship with Min.  As time passes Tree-ear must find if he has the courage and strength to complete the task Min has given him in hopes of one day working with clay.

Thousand Cranes Vase

I was 18 pages into this book when my boyfriend asked me how it was going.  I said it was horrible so far as I made fun of the characters' names and mentioned that the book took place in the 12th century.  He laughed along with me and I knew I would have to trudge through this book because it was on the Newbery Medal list.  The longer I read the more I found myself overlooking the names of the characters and I completely forgot that this took place in the 12th century.  I begin to focus on the pottery and the history behind it.  At the end of the book a piece of pottery is mentioned called the Thousand Cranes Vase.  No one knows who made it or even when.  Linda Park worked this piece of art into the book to leave the reader wondering if the fictional Tree-ear had made the vase in honor and memory of Crane-man.  After further research into this vase I came across a website for Linda Park that explained that the book was fiction, but the pottery and history mentioned in the book was based on actual pieces.  You can check out her website here, Linda Sue Park - A Single Shard.  I love that there was so much history in this book.  Park took a lot of time to research the process and methods of making pottery during this era.  If I were an art teacher I would be begging the literacy teacher to incorporate this to do some integration across the subjects.

I didn't enjoy this book at the beginning, but the longer I read the more invested I became.  I settled into the names of the characters and the way of life.  I think I would have been more excited to read this book had my copy of the book had a different cover.  Like many award winning books there are multiple covers, and the copy I had had the cover that I included in this review.  The other cover was more updated instead of looking like it just came from the 80s.  I give this 5 stars and recommend this to teachers and artists alike.  I think both the teachers and students would benefit from this book integrated into the classroom.