Moving house can be an unsettling, not to say traumatic experience for children - especially when the move involves a move to a new country with a different culture and language. Usually children have had no say in family decisions and they can feel swept along by the adults in their lives. Stories about other children moving to a new home are certainly a good way to help ease feelings of isolation and, as in so many other situations, provide an opening for children to talk about their own worries. Even children who appear to be positive and excited about imminent changes in their lives need an outlet to express niggling concerns before these whisperings become overpowering spectres.
Goodbye, 382 Shin Dang Dong (National Geographic, 2002) by sisters Frances and Ginger Park and illustrated by Yangsook Choi (who all feature in interviews in our current focus on Korea) is a perfect story to reassure and reflect on: and its ending on a note of optimism means that it’s also a good story to go to sleep on.
Jangmi is very sad that her family is about to move from Korea to America. She has to say good-bye to everything and everyone she knows - the market, her best friend Kisuni, the beloved willow tree in her garden. Jangmi’s parents have done a good job preparing her - she knows a lot about what will be the same, similar, different: but even so, she doesn’t want to go. However, once actually in America, Jangmi starts to feel a bit more optimistic. There is a beautiful maple tree in her new garden and she makes a new friend - and she realises that, despite the distance, Kisuni is still her best friend.
However, this is not only a story for children who have immigrated into a new country: it is also a story that will comfort children left behind by friends moving away. And it reminds all children (and adults) of the importance of making new neighbours feel welcome, wherever they have come from.
For more book recommendations for children and young adults, read New to America - Living the Immigrant Life from The Miss Rumphius Effect; and Ann Lazim’s Personal View for PaperTigers: The Immigrant and Second Generation Experience in British Children’s Books.