One Sentence Review
Thanks to Romy who posted this comment on Twitter; couldn’t imagine a better compliment! 🙂
Read MoreThis book by @AnneSbleyOBrien is so good I didn’t mind my baby waking up in the middle of the night to nurse because it gave me an excuse to keep reading 😝#amreading
Young Reader Review
Thanks so much to Annie, who sent me this wonderful response:
Read MoreI just finished In The Shadow Of The Sun today (after finishing my ELA test, which was utterly terrible) and it was one of the best books I’ve ever read.
About a month ago I was with my grandparents at lunch and, much to my grandmother’s dismay, I brought the book into the restaurant with me. I was sipping raspberry iced tea and reading a mile a minute when my grandmother asked how the book was.
I believe my exact words were, “It’s so, so good. It’s one of those books you get sucked into after the second page.” As I was desperate for more I went on to read the author’s note, which I don’t think I’ve ever done before in a book.
Congratulations on your first novel! Keep them coming, your first was spectacular!!
p.s. One part I forgot to tell you: The book was at the book fair at my school, and as soon as I saw it I dragged my friend over to the shelf and talked about it so much that instead of calling it by its title she started calling it ‘the good book’, after what I’d called it so many times.
Honors!
Launching a book can feel as if you’re putting a small vessel into a vast sea, in the midst of thousands of other craft. Will it ever be seen again?
Upon its release last year, In the Shadow of the Sun was chosen as a
In the past month, the book has been honored on four new lists:
🔅Bank Street College of Education, The Best Children’s Books of the Year, 2018 Edition
🔅NCSS/CBC Notable Social Studies Trade Books for Young People 2018
🔅International Literacy Association Teachers’ Choice
🔅Maine Student Book Award Nominee
I’m deeply grateful for these forms of recognition, and all the readers who may find my book because of its appearance on one of these lists.
Read MoreA Young Reader Responds
Thanks to Jade, who sent me this note:
Read MoreIn the Shadow of the Sun is a really good book. One of my favorites. I think the fact that this book takes place in North Korea is one reason why it makes the book good and mysterious in a way. I’m reading your book again! … I know people say never to judge a book by its cover, but I think the cover of your book explains the story pretty well! I like this book because of how you make the girl interested in Korea and the boy is more eh about going to Korea. North Korea! I think this book is suspenseful, sad, and in the end happy.
“A nail-biter of an adventure”
Thanks to reviewer and middle school librarian Lynn Rutan, in The Booklist Reader:
Looking for a heart-thumping thriller? Anne Sibley O’Brien’s In the Shadow of the Sun (2017) was already a great choice, but then the political situation with North Korea got even worse, heightening its timeliness and intensity.
Twelve-year-old Mia Andrews and her surly older brother Simon—who we learn has been “mad since August”—are touring North Korea with their aid-worker father, who wants the family to see where he works and share some quality time. Mia and Simon find this a very odd vacation destination, and their father is soon arrested. Tension mounts when Mia discovers that a package she received contains a phone with extremely dangerous photographs stored in it.
The siblings set about to save their father and themselves by getting the phone across the Chinese border. Somehow, these teenagers will have to traverse one of the most repressive countries in the world with little money, no allies, and a scant understanding of the language. Throw in Simon’s all-American looks, and this proves an almost-impossible undertaking.
Life-or-death adventure and a nothing-is-as-it-seems plot would be enough to make this a promising read for middle-schoolers. O’Brien, however, supplies a lot more to take away. She juxtaposes Mia’s experiences as a South Korean adoptee in a largely white Connecticut town against her trip experience where she looks like everyone else. She depicts Mia and Simon’s sibling relationship wonderfully: Mia feels, rightly, that Simon dismisses her abilities, thoughts, and potential contributions, so watching Mia’s personal growth and increasing self-confidence becomes all the more satisfying. Interspersed throughout the adventure are the reflections of various North Korean citizens, which help provide a greater understanding of the country and its suffering people.
O’Brien, who grew up in South Korea, has delivered a nail-biter of an adventure that is also outstandingly researched and packed with fascinating information and insights. Buckle your seat belts, this one’s a wild ride!
Read More
Review from a Young Reader
Thanks to Amanda Kang, who wrote this review:
Read MoreIn The Shadow Of The Sun by Anne Sibley O’Brien
Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I am 13 years old going into the 8th grade, and felt that it was a good fit (part of that may have come from the fact that Mia’s character and I have a lot of similarities, being Korean-American, about the same age, having to go to Korean school/한글학교, etc). In general, I enjoy these kinds of books about semi-hardcore survival (like The Boxcar Children) because it’s exciting to read about people my age staying alive due to their own resourcefulness.
I myself have only ever been to South Korea, although my grandpa was born in Pyongyang and my dad has been on the other side of the border twice. I learned some valuable information by reading this book, whether it’s how heavily a family’s fate depends on the time that one of their children flips her card at a performance, how accidentally dropping an important person’s portrait could send you to reeducation camp, or simply how dangerous it is to be associated with someone/something that the North Korean officials do not approve of. It’s scary, especially at this time. On the bright side, it’s helpful to know that I could change the meaning of my middle name if I wanted to. That’s not something many of my friends can do.
Of course, there is also the element of Simon and Mia’s relationship. I liked how the whole experience of being stuck there brought them closer together, the way they should be as siblings (but who am I kidding? I never get along with my sister). It was nice to see how their working together was what saved them in the end.
Anyhow, I am glad that I read this book and will give it four or five stars on goodreads as soon as it’s published (I also don’t think I mentioned that I have never read an advance uncorrected proof before, so this is a first for me). I believe that it’s really important, especially for people who assume ideas based only on what they hear in the news about places like North Korea (a kid asked me on the playground “why are you reading a communist book? That’s where Kim Jong-un is from, and we don’t like him”), to read this book and books like it, because then they’ll have a better idea of why these things happen while still reading from an outsider’s perspective. Speaking of perspectives, I really appreciated those grey sections in between the different chapters, because it is always better to have multiple viewpoints in a complicated story. I am also glad that those parts–while short–connected to the main story, because otherwise you would just have random parts mixed in with the plot and you wouldn’t get the background of the tertiary/secondary characters that you meet briefly in the narrative.
Because of this book, I now have a better understanding of the more misunderstood side of the country that my family is from, and for that I am grateful.