The Color of Water (Color of Earth)
Grade 10 Up–In this installment in the trilogy set in 19th-century Korea, Ehwa falls in love with a strong young man named Duksam, while her mother continues her affair with a traveling salesman. This is a quiet and intimate story about a girl's first sexual awakenings as well as the changing nature of her relationship with her mother during her adolescence. The language and concepts are poetic–Ehwa's mother teaches her that women are like flowers while men are like fire and wind. While Hwa's artwork predominantly conveys a lot of emotion with very few carefully placed lines, there are some larger scenes of natural beauty (flowers, trees, the night sky) that are breathtaking in their detail. A Korean village is a far cry from the environment of most American teens, but the romantic themes will keep even modern girls pining for more of this story. It is not necessary to have readThe Color of Earth(Roaring Brook, 2009) to understand this volume, but since readers will probably be curious to learn about Ehwa's first two loves and about what will happen with Duksam in the future, ordering the trilogy is a sound investment.–Andrea Lipinski, New York Public LibraryEND