My Name Is Yoon

by Helen Recorvits, Gabi Swiatkowska (Illustrator)

Overview

Getting to feel at home in a new country

Yoon's name means "shining wisdom," and when she writes it in Korean, it looks happy, like dancing figures. But her father tells her that she must learn to write it in English. In English, all the lines and circles stand alone, which is just how Yoon feels in the United States. Yoon isn't sure that she wants to be YOON. At her new school, she tries out different names—maybe CAT or BIRD. Maybe CUPCAKE!

Helen Recorvits's spare and inspiring story about a little girl finding her place in a new country is given luminous pictures filled with surprising vistas and dreamscapes by Gabi Swiatkowska.

My Name Is Yoon is a Bank Street Best Children's Book of the Year.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250057112
Publisher:	Square Fish
Publication date:	06/10/2014
Pages:	32
Product dimensions:	8.50(w) x 9.00(h) x 0.40(d)
Age Range:	4 - 8 Years

About the Author

I grew up in a small city much like the town in Goodbye, Walter Malinski. My grandparents were immigrants from Poland, Russia, and the Ukraine, and my parents were children during the Depression years. Determination and hope got them through those difficult times. Even though they experienced many hardships, they always found something to smile about.

I remember my mother reading to me when I was two years old. My favorite book was about Cinderella. She wore a beautiful pink-and-white gown that looked like a great big birthday cake. I began writing my own stories and sharing them with my cousins when I was eight years old. When I was a teenager, I wrote a weekly column for a local newspaper. Later, I graduated from Rhode Island College with degrees in education and psychology.

Today I live with my husband in the peaceful, woodsy town of Glocester, Rhode Island. I have two grown sons, and I am a second-grade teacher. I love reading and writing stories about interesting characters — people trying to find their place in life, people with hope in their hearts.

If you’re born on this planet, you’re set for a colorful life, whether you want it or not.  I found myself in Eastern Europe, in southern Poland, in a little village with a weird name.

I don’t remember making that decision.

The first thing I remember are the crows.  Crows are to Poland what ravens are to London.  The crows would hold daily conferences right in front of my house, spreading their black selves like a carpet over the grassy field.  I’d run up to them and watch them rise like a shimmering giant, watch the sky swallow them up.

I wrote stories until it was decided that there was too much kissing going on—in the stories, of course, not in real life. I was forbidden to write any more.  I drew pictures, of princesses mostly.  As there were no objections, I kept at it all through elementary school, gymnasium, college, and right into my professional life.

While at elementary school, I really did believe I was a princess.  Not the Disney kind, but one more along the lines of a Russian folktale, the princess lost and never found, waiting patiently for the day it was officially announced.

I entered the Lyceum of Art at fourteen and discovered it was full of princesses, as well as knights.  Sometime around the third year of school it dawned on me that if I was the “lost and never found” kind of princess, there was no use waiting for the official announcement.  So I climbed on top of my wardrobe to take a look at things from a different perspective and decided it was time to go to America.

I took my dog with me.  My dog was very fond of eating toilet paper, and since we had no such commodity in Poland at the time, I figured he’d do better in America.  Plus, I couldn’t bear to leave him behind.

Gabi Swiatkowska was born in Tychy, Poland, and attended the Lyceum of Art in Bielsko-Biala, as well as the Cooper Union School of Art in New York City. She lives in Brooklyn, New York.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

"With subtle grace, this moving story depicts a Korean girl's difficult adjustment to her new life in America...Swiatkowska's stunningly spare, almost surrealistic paintings enhance the story's message." — Starred, School Library Journal

"As noteworthy for what it leaves out as for what it includes....Yoon may be new to America, but her feelings as an outsider will be recognizable to all children." — Starred, Publishers Weekly

Editorial Reviews

* With subtle grace, this moving story depicts a Korean girl's difficult adjustment to her new life in America. . . . Swiatkowska's stunningly spare, almost surrealistic paintings enhance the story's message.” —School Library Journal, starred review

“* As noteworthy for what it leaves out as for what it includes. . . . Yoon may be new to America, but her feelings as an outsider will be recognizable to all children.” —Publishers Weekly, starred reivew

From the Publisher

"My name is Yoon. I came here from Korea, a country far away," begins Recorvits's (Goodbye, Walter Malinski) first-person narrative, as noteworthy for what it leaves out as for what it includes. Swiatkowska's (Hannah's Bookmobile Christmas) opening spread similarly conveys a sense of starkness, with a landscape of rolling hills and towering trees in small clusters; the serene narrator appears in a white dress. With a turn of the page, readers see Yoon dwarfed by the seemingly endless checked flooring of her new American house. She sits at a large white table where her father teaches her to write her name in English ("I did not like YOON. Lines. Circles. Each standing alone. My name looks happy in Korean. The symbols dance together"). At school, Yoon refuses to write her name. Instead, she fills her paper with other words she learns from the teacher, such as cat. "I wrote CAT on every line. I wanted to be CAT.... My mother would find me and cuddle up close to me." Yoon's words betray her sadness and insecurity at relinquishing some of her Korean identity, while Swiatkowska's painterly artwork translates the girl's fantasies. A close-up of Yoon's face shows feline ears protruding from her jet-black hair, while in the background, a real cat balances on a window sill. A turning point comes when a classmate offers Yoon a cupcake, and the heroine imagines herself as one; her round face a leafed cherry atop the pastry as she floats above the classroom. Yoon may be new to America, but her feelings as an outsider will be recognizable to all children. Ages 4-8. (Apr.) Copyright 2003 Cahners Business Information.

Publishers Weekly

K-Gr 2-A Korean child, feeling at odds in her American school, tries out various personas before accepting her English name. The stunning oil paintings reveal the girl's active imagination, positive attitude, and shining wisdom. Copyright 2004 Reed Business Information.

School Library Journal

An unhappy young immigrant seeks, and at last regains, a sense of self in this atmospheric, expressionistically illustrated episode. Instead of writing her own name on her papers at school, Yoon calls herself "Cat," then "Bird"-"I wanted to be BIRD. I wanted to fly, fly back to Korea"-and even, after a classmate's friendly culinary overture, "Cupcake." Ultimately, she finds her balance again: "I write my name in English now. It still means Shining Wisdom." Swiatkowska internalizes Yoon's adjustment, both by depicting her escape fantasies literally, and by placing figures against expanses of wall that are either empty of decoration, or contain windows opening onto distant, elaborate landscapes. Reminiscent of Allen Say's work for its tone, theme, and neatly drafted, often metaphorical art, this strongly communicates Yoon's feelings in words and pictures both. She is also surrounded by supportive adults, and her cultural heritage, though specified, is given such a low profile that she becomes a sort of everychild, with whom many young readers faced with a similar sense of displacement will identify. (Picture book. 8-10)

Kirkus Reviews