Red, White and Perfect One - 2022 Newbery Honor Award Winner

Description

A song of emotion and hope, a Newbery Award-winning verse novel
“Red, White, and Perfect One” is a junior novel that won the 2022 Newbery Honor Award. It is introduced as a novel that is good for upper elementary to middle school students to read. However, when we open the bookshelf, we see unfamiliar text that is different from the novels we know. We see what we usually call poetry, including short lines and line breaks, metaphors and emotional development. However, when you read these poems, you realize that they are not separate stories, but are connected to each other and tell one story. This is a verse novel.
Although this type of verse novel is not commonly found in Korea, it is a common literary form in English-speaking countries. Verse novels, in which poems are connected to form a single story, can enjoy both the strengths of poetry and prose. In the case of poetry, the world is usually viewed, refined, and expressed from the poet's subjective perspective, which allows us to better understand and feel the poet's thoughts and emotions. In the case of prose, the story structure is enriched by describing and explaining the situation and background. It helps readers understand the story by clearly explaining relationships with various people, surrounding backgrounds, and situations that the poem may otherwise miss. The strengths of these two genres are well expressed in this book. Not only are the protagonist Leha's subtle emotional changes, identity confusion, and feelings about love and friendship well expressed, but the passage of time and relationships with people that Leha finds herself in are also well explained. In particular, the various stages of emotions of the main character, Leha, are clearly revealed in the process of receiving treatment for her mother's illness, and penetrate the readers' hearts.
Another advantage of verse novels is that they can be read in a short amount of time. However, that does not mean that the content contained therein is small. Because much of the content is condensed and expressed, readers can feel the lingering effects as long as the reading time. You will be more moved and have a lasting impression when you read it twice than once, and when you read it three times rather than twice.

Finding hope in conflict between parents' wishes and one's own wishes
This book tells the story of an Indian-American girl who is in the second and eighth grades of middle school in Korea. She is an adolescent girl struggling with her identity between Indian and American. However, this concern cannot be viewed solely as a concern about Indian and American identity. Similar concerns can be found in the case of our children and youth. This is where her desire to live up to her mom and dad's expectations collides with her desire to have fun right now. The conflict between the values ​​that mom and dad consider important and the values ​​that children have today has always existed regardless of time and place, and is a topic that has been covered in many cultural contents in our country. Therefore, even though the time is 2 and the place is the story of a small town in the United States, Korean children are also immersed in the story of this book and can sympathize with Leha's feelings.
From the children's perspective, it is difficult to simply ignore the expectations of mom and dad and criticize the values ​​that mom and dad want as outdated. Children know how much their mom and dad love them, and because they also love their mom and dad, they want to make their mom and dad happy. The main character of this book, Reha, is experiencing conflict in many ways. First of all, she has identity confusion as an Indian and an American. The second is the conflict between her mother and father's expectations and her own wishes. And while she's scared of the blood for the last time, her dreams of going to medical school to study life sciences and becoming a doctor are mixed. This book depicts Leha's internal conflict and confusion well. However, if this book had stopped at describing these conflicts or confusion, she would not have won the Newbery Medal. This book sincerely expresses through the author's life that these differences and this confusion are all elements that make up oneself, and that rather than losing oneself because of these things, one becomes one's whole self thanks to these things.

Red and white, singing as one
This book stands out even from the outside. When you take off the cover, which depicts a strong girl, you come across a pretty red pattern and a red title on ivory-colored leather. And when you turn the hardcover cover, you see red cotton paper, and when you turn the pages again, you come across 118 poems written in red letters on white paper. These red letters may seem unfamiliar at first. This structure was designed to better express the theme of this book. The title of this book, “Red, White, and Perfect One,” refers to red blood cells, white blood cells, and all blood components combined to make complete blood. It also means that the main character, who has Indian and American identities, overcomes the confusion between the two identities and finds his own identity. Although it appears to be divided into two worlds, the poem was written in red letters on white paper to express that the two worlds merge and become one.
Translator Kim Nan-ryeong, who translated this book, made the narrative of the story as understandable as possible while using restrained words and metaphors and adding a sense of rhythm. He translated the feeling that the original text was trying to convey, taking great care to ensure that not a single comma or period spoiled the rhythm.
This book also mentions the titles of many popular pop songs in 1983. Considering the symbolism of these pop songs in the story, they were all translated into Korean, but the original titles were written in parentheses so that readers could find them and enjoy them when necessary. In particular, QR codes are included in the front and back of the book so that you can easily listen to the pop songs mentioned in this book on YouTube. If you watch the song along with the music video on YouTube, you will be able to feel more about Leha's sensibility and the scenery of that era and enjoy reading it.