Explore Korea with the RTFEBC

If you read my post from a few weeks ago, you know that the next area of the world we are exploring in the Reading Together Family Exploration Book Club is Korea. Throughout March and April, we'll be reading a picture book, and two chapter books-one aimed at elementary aged readers, and the other for a tween/teen audience. I'm thrilled to be co-hosting the discussion for the next two months with Sheila of The Deliberate Reader and Jessica of Quirky Bookworm.

As many of you know, Korea holds a special place in our family. Both our children were adopted from South Korea and we were able to travel to Seoul to pick up our youngest child. It's important to us that we weave the Korean culture into our family traditions, and one of the biggest ways we do that is through books. I'm a big supporter of the We Need Diverse Books movement, and I try to be sure that we have many books around the house with characters my children can identify with, both as Koreans and as Adoptees.

Jessica and Sheila picked some great books for discussion this month, and I will be sharing other favorite books about Korea as well if you'd like to explore further!

Our picture book pick is The Firekeeper's Son by Linda Sue Park. The story centers around Sang-hee, who is the son of the man responsible for keeping the village signal fire lit. When his father can't light the fire one night, Sang-hee must take his place. The discussion for the picture book will start this week, so jump in whenever you get the chance to read it.

The elementary aged chapter book is The Kite Fighters by Linda Sue Park. This story follows two brothers who share a passion for flying kites, only one of whom can represent the family at the New Year's Kite Competition in front of the king. We'll start discussing this one on Monday March 15th.

The final chapter book will be When My Name Was Keoko (also) by Linda Sue Park. This story takes place during the Japanese occupation of Korea before WWII, when much of Korean culture was forbidden. We'll start discussing this one on April 11th.

Remember, all the discussion will take place on the RTFEBC Facebook group. Feel free to jump in as we go along. There will also be a blog linkup the last Monday of each month, so if you are a blogger we'd love for you to join in!