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BLUE IN THE SEED by Kim Yong IK Kirkus Star

BLUE IN THE SEED

By

Pub Date: July 16th, 1964
Publisher: Little, Brown

Chun Bok and his mother left Cheju island for the Korean mainland while his grandmother ranted on shore that her only son's only son was being stolen from her (not to mention his prize ox) by Chun Bok's blue-eyed, widowed mother. The blue eyes and the ox are central to Chun Bok's adventures. Blue eyes had come down through many generations of his mother's family and no one noticed Chun Bok's without a sense of shock. The ox was sleek and strong and admired and coveted by everyone. They settled in the Butterfly Valley where Chun Bok could go to the school maintained by a cooperative farm worked by the students and teachers. They called him ""bird eye."" He hated to be different and had no shell to protect him from the teasing that was alternated with overtures of friendship. One frustrated afternoon, he deliberately wrecked the school garden by stampeding his ox through it. He ran away to find the ox and caught up with it at a nearby fair where a thief had entered it in the main event -- an oxfight. The hated eyes became lucky when witnesses identified the ox as Chun Bok's because they remembered the owner's blue eyes. The incidents in Chun Bok's home life and school life, the contrast of a community where the village elders taught ancient maxims and distrusted the school are all part of the well told story. It manages to be sentimental, funny, exciting and exotic without overdoing any of these elements. The pleasant line drawings are by Artur Marokvia, who did the author's last -- The Happy Days (1960, p. 500, J-198.)