By
Sungju Lee & Susan McClelland
Amulet
Books, 2016. 314 pgs. Young Adult Nonfiction
As a young child, Sungju Lee
experienced a life of privilege in Pyongyang, North Korea until his father was
forced to flee to the northwestern town of Gyeong-seong after
the death of Kim Il-Sung. There they lived in a small, unheated house and eventually
used up the savings they brought with them. FInally, Lee's
parents left him to hunt for food – his father heading for China and his mother
to another town to seek help from relatives. When they didn’t return, Lee had
to survive on his own. Stealing what he needed in the local marketplace,
he eventually formed a gang of boys to steal and beg and work together to
protect each other. Moving from city to city they defeated other gangs in order
to control local markets for their own benefit.
The life Lee experienced as a boy
was all too common during the famine that struck North Korea in the late 1990’s
when many people died of starvation .The only relief from the intensity and
nightmarish quality of his story is the knowledge that he lived and escaped
from North Korea to tell it. Though written for young adults, for
some the story will be too brutal and unendurable to read. I highly recommend
this book to readers who are interested in the insular and repressive North
Korean regime and enjoy reading about the personal triumphs of refugees.
SH
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