A Single Shard

A Single Shard by Linda Sue Park

Publisher:Yearling

Copyright:2001

Number of Pages: 148

Age: 12+

Genre: Contemporary



Summary:

In the book A Single Shard, the character Tree-ear is a poor child who lives with a man named Crane-man. Together they live under a bridge living off of their scraps of food that they find or have donated to them. Tree-ear leaves one day to go spy on the potters, one in particular draws Tree-ear's attention; his name is Min. Min was the best potter n the country and Tree-ear wanted nothing more than to be able to make pottery like Min. One day Tree-ear gets caught by Min and breaks one of Min's pots. Tree-ear ends up having to work off the damage that he did, by doing chores around the shop. Min eventually talked with Tree-ear and Tree-ear was asked to travel to the palace to show the emperor the work of Min. Through Tree-Ear's travels in the forest he had to fight off various trials that came his way. However, before Tree-Ear got to the palace he broke the pottery. The only thing left was a shard. With the courage that Tree-Ear had left, he took the shard to the palace. Even though there was only a shard left, the emperor loved Min's work and so the emperor sent Tree-ear back to Min via boat. Towards the end of the book Crane-man ended up dying. However, even though the death of Crane-man was hard, Tree-Ear was still able to move on and was accepted into a new family, Min's. Now that Tree-Ear was apart of Min's family, he was finally able to learn how to make pottery.
My Reaction:
I enjoyed reading this book. I thought that it was well written and that it was interesting because of the different plot line. I enjoyed that the main character was about a poor boy who was able to rise up to become something more.
Who would benefit from this book?
I think that anyone could benefit from this book. I think that anyone who is able to understand the hardships of being poor and not necessarily relate but be able to understand what Tree-Ear had to go through.
What problems might this book cause?
None that I am aware of.