- Tanja Nathanael
Chesil’s The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart: a review
The Color of the Sky is the Shape of the Heart (2022) explores a young teen’s journey through crisis as she protests her treatment as Zainichi – that is, ethnic Korean living in Japan, historically since the years of World War II to the present. This identity is further complicated by the requirement that Zainichi must choose a North or South Korean national identity regardless of whether they were born in Korea or Japan. Jinhee, or Ginny, Park narrates her story via journal entries and family letters – brief vignettes that form a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts. Ginny relates incidents from her childhood, attending Japanese and then Korean schools in Japan, Catholic school in Hawaii, and a public high school in Oregon. Ginny has been kicked out of the prior three schools and has been given one last chance to make things right. Her random journal entries circle a painful and terrifying experience that forms the heart of the novel like layers of a pearl formed around a grain of sand. Ultimately, Ginny is faced with the challenge to stop running from her past and embrace self-forgiveness and self-acceptance.
This award-winning young adult novel is a demanding and enlightening read, especially for those unfamiliar with the lived reality experienced by Koreans living in Japan. Although aimed at a middle-grade to high school readership, some assistance would be needed in a classroom setting for younger readers with regard to cultural and historical context. For example, the novel is likely set in the mid- to late-1990s, with references to Michael Jackson, the Sex Pistols, Adidas, and Walkman. Likewise, the journal-style entries, while providing a deeply personal and emotional connection, do not explicitly signal calendar years in the narrative—the reader must intuit the nebulous timeline based on the character’s age and what school and country she is in at the time, which is not told in temporal order. Again, experienced readers may be able to navigate the text with more assurance, but younger readers may need assistance. Historical context, such as why Koreans were conscripted to Japan during World War II and why some Koreans found it necessary to move to Japan post-World War II, and historical moments, such as when North Korea fired a missile over the Sea of Japan, are given some explanation in the text; however, these moments also open up opportunity for classroom research and discussion. Children’s literature scholars, too, will find much to unpack here as Ginny crosses geographical boundaries and encounters barriers of prejudice, nationality, and injustice in her search for identity. As Ginny moves from school to school, she is marginalized for being too Korean or not Korean enough, and it is this in-betweeness that becomes the catalyst of her identity crisis.
Artistically, the novel is at its best when Ginny focuses on intimate details—such as when she describes how no two students wear the same kind of shoes at her American high school or a surreal late night encounter with a friendly stranger who kindly shares a bag of gummy bears with her and provides a listening ear. Ginny is a character of profound insight as well, observing, “Do not fear. The world is filled with more art than textbooks”—which is a comforting thought. Finally, the refrain, “The sky is falling—what do you do?” runs throughout the novel, posing a question that Ginny struggles to answer in her quest to find deeper meaning in her life. Even the lyrical title of the book poetically expresses that no view is ever the same, because one’s heart is never the same. Ginny’s journey, therefore, is a journey of the heart—one in which she achieves new insight and new perspectives and a place where she can feel comfortable in her own skin.
For an interview with the translator Takami Nieda, please click here.
Publisher : Soho Teen (April 5, 2022) (Twitter: @soho_teen ; https://sohopress.com/soho-teen/ )
Language : English
Hardcover : 168 pages
ISBN-10 : 1641292296
ISBN-13 : 978-1641292290
Reading age : 13 - 17 years
Grade level : 7 – 9
Originally published in Japan as Jini no pazuru (2016)
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Chesil is a third-generation Korean born in Japan. She attended film school to study acting until she discovered a new passion for writing. She decided to mark the end of her twenties by writing a novel inspired by events during her childhood. That novel became her debut book, The Color of the Sky Is the Shape of the Heart. In 2016, she received the Gunzo New Writer’s Prize and was nominated for the Akutagawa Prize. In 2017, she won the Oda Sakunosuke Prize as well as the Ministry of Education’s Fine Art Award for a Debut Work.
Author photo: Kodansha/Naoto Otsubo
ABOUT THE TRANSLATOR: Takami Nieda was born in New York City and has degrees in English from Stanford University and Georgetown University. She has translated and edited more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction from Japanese into English and has received numerous grants in support of her translations, including the PEN/Heim Translation Fund for the translation of Kazuki Kaneshiro’s GO. Her translations have also appeared in Words Without Borders, Asymptote, and PEN America. Formerly an assistant professor of translation at Sophia University in Tokyo, Japan, Nieda currently teaches writing and literature at Seattle Central College in Washington State.
Twitter: @TNieda
Translator photo: Adrianne Mathiowetz
ABOUT THE REVIEWER: Tanja Nathanael currently teaches Children’s Literature and Fantasy & Science Fiction Literature online for San Jose State University. An alumni of SJSU, she earned her Bachelor's in 2005 and Master's in 2010. She received her doctorate from the University of Southern Mississippi in 2019. Her study of international children’s literature has taken her to Iceland, Denmark, Germany, Austria, Poland, Sweden, England, Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. She formerly served on the international committee for the Children's Literature Association (2015-2018) and continues to support its goals as co-editor of the ChLA International Committee Blog to encourage interest in international children’s literature. She is currently co-editor of Global Children’s Literature in the College Classroom [in progress] with Dr. Sara Austin (Kentucky Wesleyan College) and a managing editor for Climate Literature in Education at ClimateLit.org. Her research examines borders and peripheries in children’s literature, climate literature, fantasy & science fiction literature, and nineteenth-century British literature.