Title: The Name Jar
Author: Yangsook Choi
Summary
"The Name Jar" by Yangsook Choi is a great children's book that teaches children about diversity and the importance of cultural acceptance. This book also does a great job at promoting self discovery and loving your unique individual qualities. In this book, the main character is a young girl named Unhei. Unhei is from Korea, and is starting school for the first time in America. Like most children starting a new school, Unhei is of course nervous. The story starts off with Unhei going to school and having difficulty introducing herself to the other students with her Korean name. At first Unhei attempts to tell a few students her name, but quickly realizes that the children have difficulty understanding it and somewhat gives up telling students and teachers her name. This is where the "name jar" itself comes into play within the story. Unhei's fellow home room classmates start putting name ideas in a jar for Unhei to choose from, and at the end of the week Unhei is supposed to choose a name out of it to use. When Unhei goes home to tell her mother about her first day of school, she expresses to her that she would like an American name due to how school that day went. Unhei's mother seems hurt by Unhei not wanting to use her Korean name. We learn through the story that Unhei's means grace in English, and her parents took great care in chosing her name. Throughout the story, Unhei plays with the idea of using the different American names that the students have presented to her. Unhei likes some names more than others, however, none of the names seem to be just the right "fit" for her. Another character that plays an important role in this story is a boy named Joey in Unhei's homeroom class. Joey becomes a friend to Unhei and while out and about grocery shopping at a Korean store, learns that what Unhei's name is when the store owner calls her by name. Joey thinks Unhei's Korean name is very cool, and Unhei even shows him a very neat Korean stamp of her name on it. At the end of the week when Unhei is supposed to choose a name, the name jar suddenly is no where to be found. It is at this point that Unhei finds that she doesn't want to use any of the other names, but is happy with her using Korean name.
Classroom Activities
The book "The Name Jar" can be read at any time during the school year, but I think would be a great introductory story to read to students when school starts. This story provides many opportunities for whole group discussions. One whole group discussion topic that could be done with students would be to have students discuss what they would do if they were in Unhei's position. Another great activity that I think students would love would be for students to create a name jar of sorts for themselves. However, instead of coming up with different names for themselves, they could come up with different adjectives that describe themselves to showcase to the class as a way for each student to get to know each other better. This book can be found at a local library, but can also be accessed freely on YouTube. Here is a link to a great read aloud version of the story https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192ytnVUCUQ.
References
THE NAME JAR by Yangsook Choi (Kids Book Read Aloud 📚) | Back to
School. (n.d.). Www.youtube.com.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=192ytnVUCUQ
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