By Helen Recorvits
A girl who's just moved from Korea doesn't want to write her name in English letters, until she decides Yoon is worth keeping no matter the alphabet.
Yoon has just moved from Korea, and everything around her is new, the street, the school, the letters. In Korean her name looks right to her; in English it just looks lonely. Her father wants her to practice writing YOON, but she doesn't want to. She misses home and doesn't much like it here, so at school she writes other words instead. CAT, because a cat could curl up in a corner and hide. BIRD, because a bird could fly all the way back to Korea. A kind teacher and one friendly classmate give her small reasons to stay, and by the end Yoon writes her own name and means it.
It gets something small and true about being the new one. It isn't only the big changes; it's your own name suddenly looking strange on the page. Yoon isn't loud about being sad. She just quietly wishes she were back home, and plenty of children know that feeling even if they've never moved anywhere. If your child is the one who just arrived somewhere, this tells them the homesick part is allowed. If they aren't, it's a quiet way to feel what the new child in class might be carrying.