The Year of Impossible Goodbyes

The Year of Impossible Goodbyes by Sook Nyul Choi is a wonderful book about the struggles of Koreans during the Japanese rule in Korea and the separation of the 38th parallel. This story was very emotional. It's use of testimony made the reader feel the pains that took place during this time in history. I think this would be a great book to use in a classroom to teach a historical event. It would allow the students to learn more than the facts of the events. They could use the main character to understand the emotional struggles that many Koreans went through. I like the idea of this because I think students learn and are more greatly affected by emotion that by facts. The only thing that was challenging about this book was the number of characters in it. I would suggest reading it with a character bookmark and writing down who each character is and their relationship to the main character. Overall, I really like the way this book makes the reader think.