The Name Jar by Yangsook Choi

I enjoyed this book. I was in the book store one day and it caught my eye so I flipped through it, and I'm glad I did. 

It's about a little girl who comes from Korea and moved to North America. She goes to school and doesn't want to tell the class her name because it is different. She says she doesn't have a name, so her classmates make a name jar for her and put in names that she can use. Then she gets a letter from her grandmother who is still in Korea saying how much she loves her and in the letter was a seal with her name on it. After getting this she is once again proud of her name and goes back to school and tells her class mates her real name and what it means (I apologize if I got some of the details mixed up it was a while back that I read it). This book was a tear jerker for me. I'm not Korean, nor have I had major problem with my name (though people often mispronounce it when reading it), but the struggle for the acceptance of one's self and one's own difference in comparison to others is something we all go through, and this story successfully displays that struggle and overcoming that struggle in a simple way. I think its a good way to get children to understand that though they are different, they will be accepted by someone, and opens them up to other cultures at the same time. Worth the read.