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A review by nicolemhewitt
The One Thing You'd Save by Linda Sue Park
5.0
This review and many more can be found on my blog: Feed Your Fiction Addiction
A sweet verse narrative that highlights life’s true treasures. In this story, Ms. Chang asks her students a simple question: What one object would you take with you if you were fleeing from a fire? Each student’s answer is a window into their personality and their values. Some of the objects are relatively simple, some profound. Some of the students find clever ways around the rules, while others share personal stories that reveal why their object is sacred to them.
The poems in the book are written with the syllabic structure of a sijo, a short Korean form of poetry (though Park explains at the end of the book that she sometimes takes liberties with the length). Since most kids probably aren’t familiar with this form of poetry, they’ll be learning something new. (Maybe they’ll even want to try it out themselves.) Plus, it will encourage them to think about important objects in their own lives, and what special meanings their possessions might hold.
A sweet verse narrative that highlights life’s true treasures. In this story, Ms. Chang asks her students a simple question: What one object would you take with you if you were fleeing from a fire? Each student’s answer is a window into their personality and their values. Some of the objects are relatively simple, some profound. Some of the students find clever ways around the rules, while others share personal stories that reveal why their object is sacred to them.
The poems in the book are written with the syllabic structure of a sijo, a short Korean form of poetry (though Park explains at the end of the book that she sometimes takes liberties with the length). Since most kids probably aren’t familiar with this form of poetry, they’ll be learning something new. (Maybe they’ll even want to try it out themselves.) Plus, it will encourage them to think about important objects in their own lives, and what special meanings their possessions might hold.