Father's Road by Ji-yun Jang - OPTIONAL

Jang, Ji-yun   Father's Road  Illustrated by Tan Jun. Unpaged. Eerdmans Books for Young Readers, 2017. $15.50 (paperback). PICTURE BOOK.

His father is usually away from home on business, but this time he, Wong Chung, is with him. Traveling with the caravan for the first time, Wong tells us about his trip across the desert to trade his family's silks for oils and spices. Enduring hot sun, thirst, sand storms, and bandits, the group journeys from place to place on their way west to Constantinople.

Originally published in Korean, the paper is printed to look like yellowed parchment, and the illustrations use various shades of blacks and browns with touches of muted yellows and greens to recreate the look of an ancient manuscript. The back pages include information about the Silk Road, key terms and concepts about the global exchange at that time, a list of goods traded by different areas, a map of the Silk Road, and a related timeline. The plot is fairly straight-forward, though the time frame is more unique. This book would work better as a beginner's source for researching the Silk Road than as an engaging piece of historical fiction.

EL(4-6) - OPTIONAL. Reviewed by P.K.Foster, teacher- librarian