Park, Frances 1955–

Personal

Born 1955, in Cambridge, MA; daughter of Sei-Young (a politician and economist) and Heisook Hong Park. Education: Virginia Poly Institute and State University, B.S., 1977; attended George Washington University, 1978–81. Hobbies and other interests: Tennis.

Addresses

Office—Chocolate Chocolate, 1050 Connecticut Ave., NW, Washington, DC 20036-5314. E-mail—frances@parksisters.com.

Career

Writer and entrepreneur. Chocolate Chocolate (candy store), Washington, DC, founder and co-owner (with sister, Ginger Park); writer. Also featured on local, national, and international cable television, British Broadcasting Corporation, and National Public Radio.

Awards, Honors

Second place for fiction award, Willow Review, 1993; Rosebud Magazine Award for Contemporary Writing, 1995, for short story "Premonition"; 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

Hotline Heaven (for children), Permanent Press (Sag Harbor, NY), 1998.

When My Sister Was Cleopatra Moon (young-adult novel), Hyperion (New York, NY), 2000.

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

Contributor of stories and poems to periodicals; contributor of business articles to numerous magazines and newspapers, including Kiplinger, New York Times, Washington Post, Victoria, Washington, and Gault Millau Guide.

FOR CHILDREN; WITH GINGER PARK

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

The Royal Bee, illustrated by Christopher Zhong-Yuan Zhang, Boyds Mill 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.

Sidelights

In addition to writing books as well as poems, short stories, and magazine and newspaper articles, Frances Park has collaborated with sister Ginger Park on several picture books for young readers. Reflecting the sisters' Korean heritage, works such as 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 that they cannot understand. The Have a Good Day Café also deals with culture shock, in this case the longing to return to one's homeland, while Where on Earth Is My Bagel? is a lighthearted story about a Korean boy who longs to sample a different way of life.

The Park sisters, who also own a successful confectionary boutique in Washington, DC, were born in the United States, their parents Korean immigrants who left their war-torn homeland and settled in Virginia. In addition to their books for children, the sisters have also co-authored To Swim across the World, a novel about their parents' painful experiences growing up in a country divided. Ginger approached Frances about creating such a book, and Frances agreed. "I like to be transported to other worlds," Frances Park commented during a Wash-ingtonPost.com online discussion. "Working on To Swim across the World was the most Korean I ever felt."

While growing up, Frances Park felt little affinity for her Korean heritage. The neighborhood her family lived in had no Koreans and she was not exposed to Korean culture outside of her home. In fact, the only daily re-minders of her roots were her mother's cooking and her father's calligraphy. "For some reason they didn't serve as reminders," she noted on her WashingtonPost.com discussion; "this was just the way we were. And maybe I preferred it that way." Ultimately, the process of writing To Swim around the World was eye opening. "I put myself in [protagonist] Heisook's shoes—her hanbok—and felt Korean in a most celebratory way."

Although born in the same country, the Park sisters' parents came from two different worlds: their mother, a "privileged child" of a prosperous North Korean family, stopped for treats at a tea house every day after school, while their father, from a poor South Korean family, lived with the constant threat of starvation. Realizing after their father's death that they knew little about his life, the sisters began what Ginger referred to as a mission. They spent hours researching his life before he emigrated from Korea, and had many long talks with their mother.

An important impetus for the sisters' novel was a photo of their father at the age of five years—the only photo of him as a child the family possessed. Although the Parks looked at the photo many times in passing, the sisters commented that they 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. Life is less challenging for Heisook Pang, daughter of a North Korean minister, than for the South Korean Sei-Young Shin, who awakes each morning hoping for a simple bowl of rice soup, perhaps with ferns. As Deborah Sussman Susser pointed out in her Washington Post review, although "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." 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."

On the Boyds Mills Press Web site, the sisters explained that they learned about Korea's tumultuous history from their parents. They "explained to us why our native country was divided into North Korea and South Korea, and why, on our summer trips, we could only visit South Korea. North Korea was off limits; a dark, scary, forbidden place." When the sisters finally saw North Korea from a high mountain peak on the south side of the border, therefore, they were surprised to see beauty. Instead of a frightening, forbidden place they saw a landscape of mountains and rivers. "'Hello, North Korea!' the two of us excitedly waved. 'Hello, North Korea!' But our mother's broken cry hushed us. 'My homeland!' Her homeland was there, right there. It was a place she could see but never again touch. It was forbidden! Our mother's tragedy—one of millions—was the inspiration for My Freedom Trip."

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."

In Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong eight-year-old Jangmi watches as the contents of her room are packed into a box in preparation for her family's move to the United States. After a subdued party with family and friends, and a last day with best friend Kisuni, the move is made, and days later she arrives at her new home in Massachusetts. While all is strange—from the trees in the yard to the food neighbors bring to the new family on the block—Jangmi discovers that some things in life are constant when she meets an American girl named Mary who giggles just like Kisuni. Praised by several critics for effectively capturing the fears and concerns of children during a family move, Good-bye, 382 Shin Dang Dong was described 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" by the Parks, and a Publishers Weekly writer commented that Yang-sook Choi's vivid oil paintings "create an effective backdrop for this resonant tale."

A Korean-American boy learns the value of his unique cultural heritage in The Have a Good Day Café, the Parks' 2005 picture book. A story in which "ethnic pride and entrepreneurial ingenuity dovetail," according to a Publishers Weekly contributor, a boy worries when his grandmother yearns for her home in Korea, while concerns over new competition to the family's food-cart business hang like a cloud over everyone at home. Finding a way to solve both problems, the boy convinces his family to change the cart's menu from pizza and hot dogs to traditional Korean fare, giving Grandma 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 found that the Parks' "engaging" story serves as "a sensitive and inspiring portrait of a family's triumph in the face of adversity," while in School Library Journal Elizabeth Bird cited among the book's strengths its exploration "of the world of elderly immigrants."

In the discussion on Washingtonpost.com, Frances Park remarked on the craft of writing: "I would offer any writer, Korean American or otherwise, to draw upon memories and inspiration and imagination and write their hearts and souls out; and never take rejection as a measure of self-worth."

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, June 1, 1998, review of Hotline Heaven, p. 764; 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; Sep-tember, 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 Goodbye, 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 around 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."

Frances and Ginger Park Home Page, http://www.parksis-ters.com (June 13, 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."

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