The Journey For The Single Shard

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	• A Single Shard Linda Sue Park Yearling, 2003 - 192 pages average customer review:based on 141 reviews view larger image
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highly recommended

The Journey For The Single Shard

A Single Shard is a great book. Its about an orphan boy named Tree-Ear who now lives with an old man named Crane-Man. For a long time he is content to live with Crane-Man underneath a bridge,in Ch'ulp'o,Korea, barely surviving off of scraps of food. That changes when Tree-Ear sees master potter Min making his beautiful pottery. One day Tree-Ear sneaks into Min's workplace and accidentaly breaks a pot. Now he must work for potter Min to pay for the damage. Though he has to work all day and into some of the night Tree-Ear is eager to learn.
One day the royal emmisary came to see the potters of Ch'ulp'o to see who he would give royal commisions. Each one of the potters set up a stand on the beach with their finest work on it for the emmisary to examine. He told a potter named Kang and potter Min that he wanted to see more of there work in two weeks to see who would get the commision. So Tree-Ear and Min worked extra long and extra hard to get all the pots perfect.
When they finally took the finished pots out of the kiln all of them weren't right. Something must have gone wrong with the burning. So when the emmisary came there was nothing to show. The emmisary told potter Min that if there was a way that he could get some good pots to him in Songdo that he would consider giving him a royal commision. Tree-Ear volunteered to take the pots on the long journey, afoot to Songdo. Crane-Man weaved a jiggeh for Tree-Ear to carry on his back, so he could carry the pots and his food.
A couple of days into the journey Tree-Ear stops at the Rock of Falling Flowers. Crane-Man had once before told him a story about these women who were getting chased and they jumped off of the cliff that Tree-Ear was standing on. While Tree-Ear was daydreaming a robber came and pushed Tree-Ear aside and looks inside the jiggeh. He takes some food and throws the two pots over the cliff. All of Tree-Ear's hard work has been destroyed. Tree-Ear, very frusterated ran down the hill and headed back home. He came upon the river that was under the cliff. He thought that maybe the pots didn't break completely and could take the unbroken pot to the emmisary. He found one pot but it was shatered completely. Then he found the second pot. This one wasn't broken completely and he found a big enough piece with a lot of detail on it. He decides to take that peice to the emmisary.
When he finally arrives at the Royal palace he showes the piece to the royal emmisary and he assigns potter Min a royal commision. Tree-Ear then was sent back home on a boat. When he arrived he went straight to potter Min's house. When Tree-Ear finally got there he told Min the good news, but Min didn't seem too happpy. Tree-Ear asked Min what was wrong and Min told Tree-Ear that Crane-Man died.
Tree-Ear then had to stay with Min and his wife. Min was so proud of Tree-Ear that he started to teach him to throw pots, exactly what Tree-Ear had dreamed to do. Potter Min and his wife then renamed Tree-Ear to Hyung-Pil. It was similar to the name their sons name was. Hyung-Pil then lived happily ever-after with potter Min and his wife Aijima.

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good

A Single Shard is about a boy who loves pottery and gets a job working for a potter named Min.This book takes place in the early nineteen hundreds this boys name is Tree-Ear he lives with a man named Crane-Man under a bridge in china,Sarah

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A Triple Life

A Boy who has no parents is sent on a mission by his master and then gets new parents. I have two favorite parts: those favorite parts are when the boy gets respect from the emissary, and when he gets the pottery master and his wife as his new mother and father. I would recommend this book to any one who likes books that start off with orphans and end up with the orphan having parents.

RuDong, age 11, from Taiwan

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Great Read!

Linda Sue Park wrote in a unique style of historical fiction. She wrote about what could have happened in the early years of a true Korean potter. I love the way she adds just the right amount of detail to the historical facts so that it keeps me interested without writing a history textbook.

Anyone reading A Single Shard should read the information at the end of the book. It is full of cool facts such as that it is possible that that the word "celadon" originated from the name "Saladin" a sultan of Egypt. He gave forty objects made of the fine bluish-greenish celadon style pottery to the sultan ruling Damascus at the time. It is possible that as news of the gift spread by word of mouth, people misheard and thought the pottery was called celadon. Basically, history could have played telephone with itself. Pretty neat, huh?

In summary, A Single Shard is very well written. Linda Sue Park made the book seem very authentic;I understand why it received a John Newberry Medal. I hope she keeps on writing books as good as this one.
-Sam (age 11)

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A great Korean book.

This book is about a young orphan named Tree-ear who lives with an old cripple named Crane-man. He becomes interested in the art of pottery and starts working for a Master Potter, named Min, because he broke a piece of work. After his debt was paid, he still wanted to work for the Master Potter and the potter let him stay. After a while he noticed that he wasn't doing potter's work, just carrying wood and clay. He found out the reason why was because techniques are past on from father to son, and Tree-ear is an orphan and not his son. After a long time of apprenticing, he is sent on a long journey to the emperor's palace to give pottery. On the way there, he was ambushed by two robbers. They threw the pottery over the edge of a cliff and ran. Tree-ear then tried to find the biggest shard he can to show to the council. He then showed them it and they were amazed at the quality of the single shard. After the long journey, he finds out crane-man passed away and Min takes him as an adoptive son. Now, Tree-ear can learn the pottery he has always wanted to do.

This book was influential to me because it showed me that even a little piece can show great quality which I think it shows all people. I learned that if you are humble you will get what you want. This book is historical fiction and is 152 pages. The setting is placed in 12th century Korea.

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