A Single Shard

"All that was left of the two vases was just a single shard"

A Single Shard

By: Linda Sue Park

Copyright 2001

Yearling Book

Historical Fiction

Middle School

148 Pages

An orohined boy, named Tree-Ear who lives under a brigd with his friend Crain-man, sneaks into a potters house to look at what he has made and ends up braking some pots and has to work for Potter Min to repay him for what he did.  That is how his jurney begins.  He is orriganlly just supposed to work for nine days and then be done but once his days were up he still showed up to work, so Min let him work for him.  Mins wife was kind and caring and fed him and even gave him extra food to take back to Crain-man when the day was done.  Tree-Ear finds out that Min wont ever teach him the art of pottery because it is past down from father to son and not to an orphin boy.  So with this said Tree-Ear did not give up.  He kept working.  Soon after the embassary came to visit to comission a potter to make pottery for them Tree-Ear would be on a jurney of his life.  After working long and hard on the two vases Min sent him on the long trip to take them to the emassary.  Before he left Tree-Ear gave Crain-man a little clay monkey he had made (this is immportent). So as he was taveling he got robed.  The robbers thought that he had rice in his pack and he did not.  They were not happy that it was not rice and they started beating him and they stole his money as well.  They took just about everything and right before they left one of the robbers took the vases and threw them off the cliff.  Tree-Ear went to go find them and only found tiny shards.  Looking hard he came across on shard that was bigger then the rest butit was still small.  This single shard showed all the qualities of how skilled Min was and what the emassary was looking for.  So he continued his jurney with the single shard and more determined then before.  When he reached his destination the guards did not trust him and would not let him in.  Tree-Ear remained determind and was soon let in and he refused to see no one but embassary Kim.  When he was finally shown to him he showed him the single shard and was told that Potter Min would get the commission.  They sent him home by sea and he brought the news back to Potter Min and Min's wife.  He brought such good and joyful news to them to get not good news for himself.  Crain-man was dead.  Potter Min put him right to work though.  Told him about the little clay monkey and how amazingly good work it was.  Min's wife told Tree-Ear that he would be staying with them (in a way adopting him) and gave him a new name.  No longer was he an orphin and also Min had told him that he needed to get to work beacause he couldnt help make pots without a wheel of his own. 

I would recomned this book to anyone

I dont think that there was anything wrong with this book.

I really enjoyed this book.  It was cute and such a good story.