Who's The New Girl?

The Name Jar

Written and illustrated by Yangsook Choi

Follett Library Resources, 2003

40 Pages

Modern Fantasy

            Unhei is the new girl at school. Everyone wants to know her name, but instead she says that she will tell everyone her name in a week. The students begin to place pieces of paper with their guesses of what her name is in a jar. They call it the name jar. Will the students ever learn her real name?

           

            The illustrations in this story seem to be sketches. I feel that they resemble work from an Asian culture. The illustrations accurately reflect the text.

            For this book, I chose to do a second grade social studies lesson. I want to focus more on cultural appropriation, but on a kid friendly level. I wanted to point out how the children made Unhei feel when she first met them. She was very uncomfortable, and the kids did not realize the impact they had on her. They inadvertently forced her to second guess whether she should use her real name or not.