The Hundred Choices Department Store [Paperback]

It’s 1944. The Pangs own The Hundred Choices Department Store, a thriving business in northern Korea that caters to wealthy Japanese. Thirteen-year-old Miyook Pang has spent two years serving in the war effort on behalf of Japan during the Japanese Occupation of her country. Miyook endures exhaustion and illness, but only when she is sent to work in the dreaded dye factory – a place deemed Hell’s Chamber by her older brother, Hoon - does she experience spiritual death. It is here where she meets Song-ho, an orphaned boy, and unbeknownst to her, the brief encounter will prove fateful. When Japan loses the war, Russian soldiers capture her beloved hometown and The Hundred Choices Department Store, leaving the city in ruin. With the Korean War looming, Miyook must take a dangerous flight south, across the 38th parallel now guarded by the newly formed North Korean Army. Here, once again, she encounters Song-ho, an event that will change the course of her life."A fantastic middle-grade historical novel that takes place during World War II and the tumultuous years leading up to the Korean War, set on the Korean Peninsula. Drawn from stories of the author's family,The Hundred Choices Department Storeis a richly detailed book that chronicles a harrowing era in Korean history. This book does a great job of illustrating the hard choices so many families had to make—stay in a familiar place that has been turned upside down and face danger at the hands of people who had once been allies or venture into the unknown. This is a wonderfully written, heart-wrenching tale of family and resilience." —Meg Wessell, A Bookish Affair

 "History and heart intertwine in this gripping, deeply felt novel about a divided family in a divided country. As World War II comes to a close in northern Korea, Miyooki must confront external danger--occupying Russian soldiers, vicious border patrols—and internal doublC4