Park, Ginger

PERSONAL:

Born in Washington, DC; daughter of Sei-Young (a politician and economist) and Heisook Hong Park; married Skip Redman; children: Justin. Hobbies and other interests: Tennis.

ADDRESSES:

Office—Chocolate Chocolate, 1050 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC, 20036-5314.

CAREER:

Writer and entrepreneur. Chocolate Chocolate (candy store), Washington, DC, founder and co-owner with sister, Frances Park; writer.

AWARDS, HONORS:

International Reading Association (IRA) Children's Book Award, IRA/Children's Book Council (CBC) Teachers' Choice designation, Notable Books for a Global Society designation, and National Council for Social Studies/CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Book for Young People designation, all 1999, and Capitol Choices Book Award, and Children's Literature Book Award, all for My Freedom Trip; Joan G. Sugarman Award for Children's Literature, Parents' Choice Award, Capitol Choices Book Award, and Bank Street College Book Award, all for The Royal Bee; Paterson Prize for Books for Young People, 2006, for The Have a Good Day Café.

WRITINGS:

FOR CHILDREN; WITH SISTER, FRANCES PARK

My Freedom Trip: A Child's Escape from North Korea, illustrated by Debra Reid Jenkins, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 1998.

The Royal Bee, illustrated by Christopher Zhong-Yuan Zhang, Boyds Mills Press (Honesdale, PA), 2000.

Where on Earth Is My Bagel?, illustrated by Grace Lin, Lee & Low Books (New York, NY), 2001.

The Have a Good Day Café, illustrated by Joun Un Kim, Orchard Books (New York, NY), 2002, illustrated by Katherine Potter, Lee & Low (New York, NY), 2005.

Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong, illustrated by Yangsook Choi, National Geographic Society (Washington, DC), 2002.

OTHER

(With sister, Frances Park) To Swim across the World (adult memoir), Hyperion (New York, NY), 2001.

SIDELIGHTS:

In addition to sharing the operation of a successful confectionary business in Washington, DC, Ginger Park collaborates with her sister, Frances Park, on picture books for young readers that reflect the siblings' Korean heritage. Their award-winning books, which include My Freedom Trip: A Child's Escape from North Korea and Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong, focus on young children forced to leave a familiar way of life due to changes in the adult world over which they have no control and cannot fathom. A more optimistic multigenerational tale, The Have a Good Day Café reveals ways to resolve the longing to return to one's homeland, while the lighthearted Where on Earth Is My Bagel? introduces a Korean boy who longs to sample a different way of life.

The Parks' first book for children, My Freedom Trip begins just prior to the outbreak of the Korean War, as a young girl named Soo walks home alone from school. Her friends and their families have already escaped into South Korea, and Soo's father also secretly crosses the border, assuring her that she, and then her mother, will soon follow. Indeed, his guide returns for Soo, and they travel the difficult journey on foot only to come face to face with a North Korean soldier just before crossing the river into "the freedom land." The guide begs for Soo's safety, and the soldier whispers: "Go quickly, child." The joy of the father and child reunion is short-lived, however, as the war breaks out before Soo's mother can join them, and Soo never sees her again. A

Publishers Weekly reviewer wrote that "this understated story … raises searching questions about the price of freedom."

A Korean-American boy learns the value of his unique cultural heritage in The Have a Good Day Café, a picture book in which "ethnic pride and entrepreneurial ingenuity dovetail," according to a Publishers Weekly contributor. In the Parks' story, a boy's grandmother yearns to return to her home in Korea, and the elderly woman's sadness distresses him. Meanwhile, questions over how to promote the family's food-cart business absorb everyone at home. Hoping to solve both problems, the boy convinces his family to change the cart's menu from pizza and hot dogs to traditional Korean fare, thereby promoting his grandmother to an important and much-appreciated role in the family business. Praised for its intergenerational storyline, The Have a Good Day Café also has an element of humor, as well as "plenty of affection and keen observation," according to the Publishers Weekly reviewer. A Kirkus Reviews writer called the sisters' "engaging" storybook "a sensitive and inspiring portrait of a family's triumph in the face of adversity."

In Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong eight-year-old Jangmi watches as her possessions are boxed up in preparation for her family's move to the United States. After good-byes to best friend Kisuni are said, Jangmi travels to her new home, where everything first seems strange. However, the girl soon discovers that some things are shared by many cultures after she meets an American girl who giggles just like Kisuni. Praised for effectively capturing the fears and concerns inspired by a family move, Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong was praised by a Kirkus Reviews writer as a "gentle and loving story perfectly pitched to its audience." In School Library Journal, Adele Greenlee wrote that "the details of cultural differences and the immigrant experience [are] well evoked." In Publishers Weekly, a writer commented that illustrator Yangsook Choi's vivid oil paintings "create an effective backdrop for this resonant tale."

The Park sisters were born in the United States—Ginger in Washington, DC, and Frances in southern Massachusetts—after their parents emigrated from war-torn Korea and started a new life in the United States. In their book To Swim across the World the sisters explore, in fictionalized form, their parents' painful experiences growing up in a country divided. Although Frances was already a published author, Ginger was first inspired to create such a book, and Frances quickly agreed.

Although born in the same country, the sisters' parents hailed from two different worlds: their mother, a "privileged child" born to a wealthy North Korean family, treated herself to sweets at a tea house on her way home from school every day, while their father, from a poor South Korean family, lived with the constant threat of starvation. Accepting much of the culture of their new country, the couple raised their children as Americans, and because theirs was the only Korean family in their Virginia neighborhood, Ginger and Frances had little exposure to Korean culture. Realizing, after their father's death, that they knew little about his life, the sisters began what Ginger has referred to as a mission. They spent hours researching the path their father took before leaving Korea, and they also spoke at length with their mother. As Ginger noted in a Washington Post online chat: "At times it was a painful experience for our mother. Sometimes it's easier for her to forget;h3 . Now when I look at my mother I can see the young woman who left North Korea and everything she loved behind."

When the sisters began delving into their parents' past while researching To Swim across the World, they experienced many revelations. In one case, a photograph of their father at the age of five years presented them with inspiration. The only photo of him as a child in existence, the picture had often been viewed many times in passing, but the sisters never truly "saw" it until after their father's death. "How could we never have noticed that he was dressed in a ragged garment meant for a child half his age?" they wrote in an article for USA Weekend. "And that his eyes were hollow and his body malnourished? This was our father, a hungry Korean boy."

To Swim across the World is a fictionalized account of two young Koreans, Heisook Pang and Sei-Young Shin, who survive the Japanese occupation of their homeland, the communist takeover of North Korea, and the Korean War. At first, life is far less challenging for Heisook Pang, daughter of a North Korean government official, than for South Korean-born Sei-Young Shin, who awakens each morning hoping for a simple bowl of rice soup. When war comes and the Japanese occupy Korea, things change for Heisook: she must now spend much of her time darning soldiers' socks in order to aid the war effort, and with the massacre of some of the town's young men the violence of war soon corrupts the peace of even her schoolyard. In the southern part of the occupied country, Sei-Young witnesses even more horrors, and when the two have the opportunity to flee they take it, meeting each other in their search for a better life.

As Deborah Sussman Susser pointed out in her Washington Post review of the book, even while "suffering under a Japanese political domination, [the protagonists'] Korean identity is always central" resulting in "an affecting work that resonates with [the authors'] … Korean heritage and accurately reflects the tumultuous history of their country" during the 1940s and 1950s. Dubbing the Parks' novel "a revelation," a Brothers Judd online reviewer added that in To Swim across the World "the universal quest for freedom is realized in thrilling and moving fashion." Noting that the Parks' prose "sweeps the readers up with vivid descriptions and memorable metaphors, Voices from the Gaps contributor Abbey Peterson deemed To Swim across the World an "incredibly well written" novel that "paints horrific visions of war and struggle along with heartwarming moments of love and affection."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, September 1, 1998, Hazel Rochman, review of My Freedom Trip: A Child's Escape from North Korea, p. 122; May 1, 2001, Madelene Chamberlain, review of To Swim across the World, p. 1668; September 1, 2005, Diane Foote, review of The Have a Good Day Café, p. 145.

Kirkus Reviews, September 1, 1998; review of My Freedom Trip, p. 1290; March 1, 2000, review of The Royal Bee, p. 305; September 1, 2001, review of Where on Earth Is My Bagel?, p. 1298; September 15, 2002, review of Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong, p. 1397; September 1, 2005, review of The Have a Good Day Café, p. 980.

Publishers Weekly, September 28, 1998, review of My Freedom Trip, p. 101; January 31, 2000, review of The Royal Bee, p. 106; November 11, 2002, review of Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong, p. 62; November 28, 2005, review of The Have a Good Day Café, p. 51.

School Library Journal, January, 1999, Shawn Brommer, review of My Freedom Trip, p. 119; April, 2000, Diane S. Marton, review of The Royal Bee, p. 111; September, 2001, Bina Williams, review of Where on Earth Is My Bagel?, p. 202; October, 2002, Adele Greenlee, review of Goodbye, 382 Shin Dang Dong, p. 124; April, 2003, Diane S. Marton, review of Good-bye, 392 Shin Dang Dong, p. 104; August, 2005, Elizabeth Bird, review of The Have a Good Day Café, p. 104.

Washington Post, July 22, 2001, Deborah Sussman Susser, review of To Swim across the World, p. T05.

ONLINE

Boyds Mills Press Web site,http://www.boydsmillspress.com/ (February 18, 2002), "Frances and Ginger Park."

Brothers Judd Web site,http://www.brothersjudd.com/ (June 17, 2001), review of To Swim across the World.

FSB Associates Web site,http://www.fsbassociates.com/ (February 18, 2001), "A Family Story Retold as Fiction."

Lee & Low Books Web site,http://www.leeandlow.com/ (May 23, 2006), "Booktalk with Frances Park, Ginger Park."

Park Sisters Home Page,http://www.parksisters.com (September 20, 2006).

USA Weekend Online,http://www.usaweekend.com/ (October 27, 2001), Frances Park and Ginger Park, "Dreams Despite Hunger: A Father's Memory Inspires Two Sisters to Remember, Love, and Write about Their Heritage."

Voices from the Gaps Online, http://www.voices.cla.umn.edu/ (September 20, 2006), Abbey Peterson, review of To Swim across the World.

Washington Post Online,http://www.washingtonpost.com/ (August 29, 2001), online chat transcript: "A Story of Family History, Korean Style."