Grass back

"Mama, can I go to school, too?"
"You're whining about school when we've got nothing to eat?"
"But big brother gets to go."
"Don't give me that hogwash! You think you two are the same?"

The year is 1934 and we're in Busan, South Korea. Lee Ok-sun is a young girl with one simple dream: to go to school like her mischievous brothers. Instead, with younger sibling tied to her back, she helps her mother at the market in hopes of scraping together enough to be able to feed the family that evening.

Lee Ok-sun learned from an early age that this wasn't a woman's world. But never in her worst nightmares did she imagine the horrors that her life would hold...
For an idea of the contents of this important yet harrowing biography, here's what the publisher has to say…

"Grass is a powerful anti-war graphic novel, offering up firsthand the life story of a Korean girl named Lee Ok-sun who was forced into sexual slavery for the Japanese Imperial Army during World War II, a disputed chapter in 20th century Asian history.

Keum Suk Gendry-Kim emphasizes Lee's strength in overcoming the many forms of adversity she experienced. Grass is a landmark graphic novel that makes personal the desperate cost of war and the importance of peace."

As heartbreaking and heavy a topic as this is, Gendry-Kim has delivered Granny Ok-sun's story with the sensitivity and tenderness that this valiant, elderly lady deserves. Simplified imagery and softened characters focus on the humanity, not the brutality of the situation.

But that doesn't mean this book is any less powerful. Much like Granny Ok-sun herself, it has a quiet strength, one that gets under your skin and then completely takes hold of you.

"We will keep fighting until the end."