A Single Shard
When talking pigs sell and wizards sell better, A Single Shard is a most improbable bestseller.
It’s about celadon pottery in 12th-century Korea.
This Newbery Award-winning story of a famous glaze is not without drama — a robbery, a drowning, a harrowing night on the road. The drama, however, develops from an unhurried plot in which the emphasis is less on incident than on process.
We follow a would-be apprentice named Tree-Ear as he spies on a potter, chops firewood, shovels slabs from the riverbank, and strains the clay. The risks of the firing process and the subtleties of glaze come across in glimpses of the potter’s work.
Bringing warmth and humor to the historical detail is a likable, if familiar cast: the gruff potter Min, his kind wife, and disabled old Crow Foot, who lives with the orphaned Tree-Ear under a bridge and offers stories, sandals, and advice.
Korean-American author Linda Sue Park tends to spin her stories around trademarks of Korean culture, such as kite-fighting (The Kite Fighters), silkworms (Project Mulberry), and the closeted lives of upper-class girls (See-Saw Girl).
Beyond the cultural specifics, A Single Shard is a quest for mastery and belonging that young readers may recognize, whether from trying for a team or finding a place among classmates.
One might also enjoy its quick, engaging immersion in the nitty-gritty of a Korean pottery village – everything from diet and superstitions to how to build a medieval backpack from silk and straw.
What the reader does not learn is how Tree-Ear throws the perfect vase he imagines, one incised with clouds and cranes. Like the reader intrigued by the beautiful grey-green pottery, Tree-Ear becomes, not a master, but a true apprentice.
