JUST ONE GIFT

A class of kids consider their communities.

In Park and Sae-Heng’s The One Thing You’d Save (2021), Ms. Chang’s students pondered what they might rescue from a burning house. The children are back with a new assignment and fresh opportunities for contemplation. The title reveals the game again: Granted the opportunity to give a gift of any size or value to someone, who might you choose, and what would you give? Some kids go simple—a signed baseball or a gaming system for a friend—while others consider their recipients’ special talents, like a restaurant where an abuela can share her delicious Honduran baleadas with the world. Many kids’ responses display an acute understanding of the challenges facing the adults in their lives—imagining a comfy chair for an exhausted building super or plane tickets for school staff who can’t afford to visit family abroad. Sae-Heng’s quiet, evocative images of both grief and gifts imbue meaning in scenes as small as a lost sibling’s photo and as sweepingly grand as the Himalayas. Subtly following the concept of sijo—a Korean three-line syllabic verse form—Park’s novel gives youthfully meandering thoughts structure while still allowing them to flow freely. Names and other details suggest a diverse student body; some of the gifts chosen gesture toward economic diversity as well.

A well-paced, insightful exercise in observation and empathy.