Finding Junie Kim

Finding Junie Kim by Ellen Oh, 2021

Recommended for grades 4-8; realistic fiction, historical fiction

Brief Review:

Seventh grade is off to a rough start for Korean American Junie Kim. Between bullying, racist graffiti at school, and a fight with her friends about how best to address racism, Junie becomes severely depressed. When she opens up to her grandfather about her struggles, he tells her about his own experiences growing up during the Korean War. Much of the book is historical fiction, describing the atrocities of the war from the perspective of Grandpa first and Grandma later in the book. Meanwhile, the frame narrative describes Junie’s reconciliation with her friends, their efforts to combat racism at school, and how Junie and her family cope with grief when sudden tragedy strikes. Although the book is relatively interesting and contains valuable messages about racism as well as a lot of cultural and historical information about Korea and the Korean War, it falls a little short on a couple counts. Much of the racist rhetoric directed at Junie includes terms like “commie” and “chink”, which is unrealistic coming from modern tweens, and the implied parallels between racial slurs and the brutality of the Korean War seem to undermine the atrocities of actual, literal war. More concerning, the book glazes over Junie’s depression and suicidal thoughts, implying that they are a natural response to racism and can be cured via activism. Recommended as an informative work of historical fiction, but look elsewhere for believable and helpful discussions of social activism or mental health.

Long Review:

It’s the first day of seventh grade and things are already not going well for Junie Kim. Now that her brother is in high school, she has to face Tobias, the bus stop bully, all by herself every single day, and perhaps even worse, someone has just spray-painted racial slurs on the gym walls. School officials and police won’t let the students see the graffiti, but Junie hears that the graffiti “was targeting Blacks, Jews, and Asians”. That includes Junie, whose family is Korean, and her two best friends Patrice and Amy, who are African American and Jewish respectively. Junie also has friends whose ancestries are Pakistani, Peruvian, and Cuban. Many of the non-white kids at school, including all of Junie’s closest friends, are determined to take action. It’s not just the graffiti; there’s been a lot of verbal racism within the student body. At first, their ideas are vague, and Junie is skeptical that they can make a difference, but Patrice berates her for being “negative”. The next thing Junie knows, she’s in a fight with her best friends.

Between the bullying at the bus stop, the racism at school, and the severed friendship, Junie quickly falls into depression. When her parents realize that she is experiencing suicidal thoughts, they immediately take action by putting her on antidepressants, taking her to therapy, and letting her take a few days off from school. They leave it up to her whether or not she wants to “share [her] private business” with her grandparents. Junie is very close to her grandfather, and she ends up telling him more than she intends, especially about the racism at school and how helpless she feels about it. In response, Grandpa tells her about his own experiences with harmful ideologies and political extremism.

The next several chapters are set in 1950 and told from the perspective of Doha, that is, Junie’s Grandpa. He was the son of a doctor in a rural part of South Korea. For longer than Doha has been alive, life has been tough in Korea; over the past couple generations, the people have endured an oppressive Japanese government followed by World War II and its immediate aftermath. But now that Koreans are theoretically in control of their own country, there is violence and hostility between the communist government of North Korea and the more democratic Republic of Korea in the south. Although Doha’s family and most of his friends and neighbors support the South Korean government, they are aware that both regimes are corrupt and extremist. When the war reaches Doha’s village, he personally witnesses much violence and brutality. He’s even beaten by a soldier at one point when he tries to bring food to a friend who’s in prison because his family is suspected of communist sympathies. 

Earlier in the book, Junie’s class had been assigned an oral history project, and she now realizes that her grandfather’s life story is the ideal topic. She begins regularly interviewing him and recording their conversations. Instead of re-telling his war stories, Grandpa tells Junie more about how he and Grandma met, got married, and moved to America. He also suggests that Junie ask Grandma about her own experiences during the Korean War, but Grandma doesn’t want to be interviewed on camera. Meanwhile, Junie has made up with her friends and gotten involved in their movement to combat racism at school. Even her depression is significantly improved. Just when it seems that everything is going well, Grandpa has a stroke. After a few days in the hospital, he has a second stroke and passes away.

After Grandpa’s death, Junie spends a lot of time with Grandma, partly because she promised her grandfather that she would look after Grandma, but also because it helps her to cope with her own grief. At this point, Grandma finally tells Junie her own story from the war. Ten-year-old Jinjoo was the second of four children in a moderately wealthy family just south of the border between North Korea and South Korea. After Jinjoo’s adult cousin and his wife and unborn child are brutally executed by communist soldiers, Jinjoo’s father accompanies her aunt to Suwon, a city that will presumably be safer for her. But he doesn’t return, so Jinjoo’s mother goes to find him, leaving the children under the care of the irresponsible maid, who doesn’t stick around for long. Jinjoo and her siblings try begging for food, but after getting picked up by police, they decide that they have to go off in search of their parents on their own. Unlike Grandpa’s story, Grandma’s ends happily; the parents and children were eventually reunited.

The book concludes with a return to the frame narrative about Junie’s oral history project and anti-racism efforts. Junie and her friends put together a video about the effects of racism at their school, which is shown to the student body as part of a diversity assembly. The assembly motivates another student to report the perpetrator of some of the racist graffiti, who is promptly expelled, and Junie finds the courage to stand up to the bully at the bus stop.

This middle grade novel is relatively interesting and contains valuable messages about the harmful effects of racism and political extremism, as well as a lot of historical information about the Korean War, which is often overlooked when it comes to children’s literature. However, the book falls a little short on a couple counts. First, much of the racist rhetoric used by the kids at Junie’s school isn’t really believable for modern middle-schoolers. The implication is that this book was set in the very recent past; references to “the election” seem to refer to the 2016 presidential election. But the bullies at Junie’s school use old-fashioned racial slurs like “chink” and accuse her of being a “commie”. Moreover, the implied parallels between these slurs and the brutality of the Korean War seems to undermine the messages about the sheer horrors of the war. While the negative experiences of Junie and real-life kids in her situation should not be ignored, they aren’t actually equivalent to the traumas of living through a literal war. 

But the biggest problem I have with this book is the way it glazes over Junie’s depression and suicidal thoughts. While Junie’s parents respond quickly and appropriately, thereby giving Junie a good start on her recovery, Junie’s own narrative voice seems to imply that severe depression and even suicide are normal, natural responses to racism rather than serious mental health problems that should never be taken lightly. There’s no mention of the fact that depression can affect anyone and is generally caused by a variety of factors, nor is there any hint of how childhood depression should be addressed if the child isn’t lucky enough to have supportive and concerned parents. Junie’s therapy appointments are mentioned periodically and the word “depression” is used occasionally, but other than that, the rest of the book deemphasizes Junie’s mental health, instead focusing on her relationship with her grandparents and her efforts to combat racism, essentially implying that she should be able to fix her depression by making her classmates less racist. While this seems to work for Junie, it sends an inaccurate message to readers who may be experiencing similar depressive symptoms themselves.