If It Hadn't Been for Yoon Jun Book

Adopted as a baby, 12-year-old Alice Larsen is of Korean heritage but feels 100% American. Then Yoon Jun, a Korean immigrant, moves to her small Minnesota town, and Alice's parents start pressuring her to make friends with the strange new boy as a way to get in touch with her heritage. Alice resists—what would her friends think? Anyway, she's American. But when she and Yoon Jun are assigned to work together on a school project, she learns about KoreaIand about doing the right thing.

Author Biography: MARIE G. LEE is a second-generation Korean American who was born and raised in Hibbing, Minnesota. Her books include If It Hadn't Been for Yoon Jun, Necessary Roughness, and Night of the Chupacabras. Her work has appeared in The New York Times, The Kenyon Review, and several anthologies. She has appeared on PBS's "Asian American" and is a founder of the Asian American Writer's Workshop.

As she reluctantly becomes friends with Yoon Jun, a new student from Korea, seventh grader Alice Larsen becomes more interested in learning about her own Korean background.