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Monday, March 15, 2021

The One Thing You'd Save, written by Linda Sue Park and illustrated by Robert Sae-Heng. Clarion Books, Houghton Mifflin Harcourt. Raincoast. 2021. $22.99 ages 8 and up t


"C'mon, people - you hear me, 
you gotta be real about this! 

If a fire burns everything up,
you're gonna need money. A lot.

Am I only one here with any smarts?
MY DAD'S WALLET. DUH.

What an awesome book, and a perfect premise for conversations with middle grade readers! In poetic verse inspired by sijo, Linda Sue Park has a class respond to Ms. Chang's question: "Imagine your home is on fire. You're allowed to save one thing. Your family and pets are safe, so don't worry about them."

The students are inspired to think critically about what is of importance to them. Some responses are funny; some thoughtful; some inspiring. All are a window into the mind of the person sharing their answer to the question. The diversity in the answers is sure to have readers wanting to further discuss the choices made, and perhaps come up with a second answer to the well-posed question. 

"Ms. Chang, is it okay if - does one collection count? 
I keep them together, on one shelf, all ninety-three of them. Ninety-three china animals. They come from boxes of tea ...

... My favorite is the Siamese cat Sandra gave me last year for my birthday. I'd been trying to get it for ages! Best friends know that kind of thing. It was the best present ever."

In his first illustrated book Robert Sae-Heng provides gray-toned images in appropriate settings for the objects chosen by each member of the class. I would love to be a fly on the wall in a middle grade classroom where this book is shared as a mentor text for class responses. 

The author adds a note about sijo, a form of traditional Korean poetry. 

If your house were on fire, do you know what you would save? 

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