Juna’s Jar

Juna’s Jar

Author: Jane Bahk

Illustration: Felicia Hoshino

Genre: Fantasy
Multicultural Book

Grade Level: K to 5^th grade

When Juna catches a caterpillar with Hector on her kimchi jar. They dream about how pretty the caterpillar will be once it turns into a butterfly. But as the day goes by, the caterpillar gets bigger for the jar so both the friends decide to let go of the caterpillar. The next day when Juna goes to Hectors Abuelita(grandma) place she learns that Hector has moved to a bigger place. He wanted to say goodbye but Juna was not at home. This makes Juna sad. Her oppa(older brother) takes her to the pet shop and buys her a fish which she keeps in her jar. That night she dreams about swimming with the fish and meeting all kinds of animal, deep in the ocean. The next day she wakes up, the fish has grown too big. She decides to set it free. Next, she plants a bean seed. She dreams about it growing high. She climbs up the beanstalk and meets all sort of animals like a sloth! The next day she decides to let off the beanstalks as it is too big for the jar. Next, she finds a cricket to put in the jar. In her dream, the cricket takes her around the city where she sees Hector sleeping in his new home with Juna’s kimchi jar next to him. When she wakes up, she lets go of the cricket. She has an empty jar again. She goes to the park with her brother and wishes to find something to put in her jar. “Look what I found!” says a girl behind her holding a green inchworm. Juna smiles because she knows along with the worm she now has a new friend!

Thoughts:

I loved this book. The illustrations are great which I think would be a factor for young readers to be drawn to. The text also has words that are Spanish and Korean so extra point for learning a new language. But most of all, this is multicultural. When I was young, I don’t think I have ever read or come across a book that a story is told from an Asian girl perspective. Sure, there were fairy tales like Sleeping beauty, Rapunzel, etc and that was a norm for me. Whenever I imagined something, I always thought of myself as the characters from the book rather than who I was. But now understand how important it is to represent a variety of culture and race from an early age. Children of all culture need to be included and I am glad that there are children books out there now that help promote just that. I can use this book to read aloud to students during their ELA lesson and ask them to predict what do you think will happen next?