Know your worth: Brother's Keeper

 

Brother's Keeper is a middle-grade, award-winning, historical fiction debut novel by #ownvoices author, Julie Lee.  It is partially based on the experiences her mother had while growing up in North Korea in the 1940s and escaping the harrows of war by journeying to South Korea for a better life in 1950.  This is a tale of survival and family, but also it's an emotional perspective on negative gender stereotyping and what it was like for North Koreans living under Communist rule.  There are lots of topics for further study and discussion questions that readers can use for book clubs.

12-year-old Sora lives in a North Korean village with her parents and two younger brothers.  She was just told by her mother that she would have to stop attending school in order to stay home and take care of her brothers while her parents work in the fields.  She knows that this is a cultural expectation, however, that doesn't stop her from wanting to pursue her studies, especially, writing.  It also doesn't make her feel better when her parents and neighbors constantly praise her brothers only for their gender.  This pressure for her to learn proper cooking in order to marry well in a few years causes great anxiety in Sora and a rift forms between her and her parents.  

Life under Communist rule adds strain to their daily lives.  As the war gets closer to their village, Sora has flashbacks of when a family member was arrested and imprisoned for helping people cross the border into South Korea.  The risk of her father being forced to join the Communist army is so high that they even bury him in a hole in the ground for months so he stays safe!  Only when the bombs start dropping on their village is it the sign they need to flee.  Sadly, Sora and her 8-year-old brother, Youngsoo, get separated from their family and it is up to Sora to keep them alive and make the difficult decision to continue trekking south toward freedom. As Sora dreadfully thinks when Youngsoo asks her how they will cross the river without a bridge, "I didn't know, and I didn't trust myself.  Yet every decision was up to me--our lives depended on it."

Since the book opens up with a map of Korea and their journey on foot and train is marked, the reader knows that they both do make it to their final destination even before reading a single word of the book.  That is a relief, except the reader knows that this is only Sora and Youngsoo's journey and that it doesn't include their family members who the readers get to know so well throughout the story.  

Lee also divides the book into 3 parts: Home, Escape, and Busan.  This helps the reader get ready for what is to come in the most basic sense.  Lee describes their tribulations with such brutal detail that it was hard to continue reading at times.  War is difficult for everyone and Lee brings that gruesome truth to light when documenting Sora and Youngsoo's journey.  In one way, their escape contains all of the parts of a survival tale: cold, fatigue, hunger, lice, attempted kidnapping, even being driven to theft of food and begging for money for medical attention for Youngsoo.  In another way, after they reach their destination, it is a whole other type of survival for Sora.  She must go back into the gender expectations by learning how to cook, clean and take care of a house so she can be a good wife soon.  

As a teacher and librarian, I would use this book to discuss a range of topics.  First, readers can consider how the talk of gender affects children.  In one scene, Youngsoo confides in Sora of his discomfort with being the first-born son.  He says it is too much pressure for him.  This surprises Sora.   What do readers think about this revelation?  Should Youngsoo speak up when his parents and neighbors put-down Sora and insult her because she is only a girl?  How do we see these gender stereotypes reinforced in American culture?  In another scene, a young woman encourages Sora to make sure that she looks after herself first, then her brother. "Know your worth."  This advice brings tears to Sora's eyes because she had always been told to be the martyr and do everything, at whatever cost, to keep her brothers alive and well.  What do readers think about this advice?  Why do we need others to give us pep-talks like these?  Who is someone that readers have in their lives whom they can give this type of advice?

The book ends with several sections that lead to further study and discussion for readers.  First, there is an Author's Note where Lee describes all of the fiction and non-fiction parts of the story. Here is a video of Lee explaining her family's connection to the book:

There is also a section for photos from Lee's family during this time period.

Another section is a glossary of Korean words and finally, a timeline of the Korean War. 

Readers can dive into these and the story is instantly enriched. TeachingBooks.net has a free discussion guide to use, too.  I had never read a book from the Korean perspective during the 1950s and it has made me curious about other people's experiences during this time period .  As Lee writes in her Author's Note, "the stories of refugee survivors remain largely untold..."