Title: Year of impossible goodbyes
First published: 1991
Description: A young Korean girl survives the oppressive Japanese and Russian occupation of North Korea during the 1940s, to later escape to freedom in South Korea.

It is 1945, and courageous ten-year-old Sookan and her family must endure the cruelties of the Japanese military occupying Korea.  Police captain Narita does his best to destroy everything of value to the family, but he cannot break their spirit.  Sookan's father is with the resistance movement in Manchuria and her older brothers have been sent away to labor camps.  Her mother is forced to supervise a sock factory and Sookan herself must wear a uniform and attend a Japanese school.

Then the war ends.  Out come the colorful Korean silks and bags of white rice.  But Communist Russian troops have taken control of North Korea and once again the family is suppressed.  Sookan and her family know their only hope for freedom lies in a dangerous escape to American controlled South Korea.

Here is the incredible story of one family's love for each other and their determination to risk everything to find freedom.
Subjects: History, Juvenile fiction, Fiction, Reading Level-Grade 7, Reading Level-Grade 6, Reading Level-Grade 8, Children's fiction, Korean war, 1950-1953, fiction, Communism, Forced labor, Courage in children, Girls, Loss (Psychology), War and society, War, Families, Brothers and sisters, Humiliation, Escapes, The Forties (20th century), Loyalty, Separated friends, relatives, Socks, Sookan Bak (Fictitious character), Grief, Family relationships, Ten-year-old girls, Hiding, Love, fiction
Places: Korea
Time periods: 1945-
LC classification: PZ7.C44626 Ye 1991